Final Report Summary - CLIM-RUN (Climate Local Information in the Mediterranean region: Responding to User Needs)
Executive Summary:
CLIM-RUN Project aimed at developing a protocol for applying new methodologies and improved modeling and downscaling tools for the provision of adequate climate information at regional to local scale that is relevant to and usable by different sectors of society (policymakers, industry, cities, etc.).
Differently from current approaches, CLIM-RUN has developed a bottom-up protocol directly involving stakeholders early in the process with the aim of identifying well defined needs at the regional to local scale. The improved modeling and downscaling tools have been used to optimally respond to these specific needs. The protocol has been assessed by application to relevant case studies involving interdependent sectors, primarily tourism and energy, and natural hazards (wild fires) for representative target areas (mountainous regions, coastal areas, islands). CLIM-RUN has also provided the seed for the formation of a Mediterranean basin-side climate service network.
Objectives
The general objective of CLIM-RUN project has been to contribute to the creation in the Mediterranean area of a Climate Services Network, in line with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on-going process, initiated with the creation of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) in 2009, and to what has already been set up in Northern European countries (e.g. the United Kingdom and Germany). In fact, the Mediterranean area is a recognized climate change hot spot, i.e. a region particularly sensitive and vulnerable to global warming. CLIM-RUN has provided an important instrument for the development of a Mediterranean-wide network.
To reach this aim, CLIM-RUN has pursued the following objectives:
• Increasing the quality, reliability and detail of climate information for societal use in the Mediterranean area by activating an effective exchange of information between the science and stakeholder communities, in key economic sectors: energy and tourism. These two sectors have been complemented by a cross-cutting issue, forest fires, whose occurrence in the Mediterranean concerns several business activities and by integrated case studies in which multiple sectors are involved.
• Developing a communication protocol by which climate information has been transferred from the researchers to the stakeholders in order to develop suitable adaptation measures. The most innovative aspect in the development of this protocol has been its bottom-up approach, by which stakeholders have been involved in the design of the protocol from its early stages in conjunction and strong communication with the science community and the climate information providers (e.g. national and international Meteorological Centers).
• Developing and providing training for a new research expertise lying at the interface between the science results and the stakeholder application.
• Developing a web-portal for: Integrating the different levels of climate and sector-relevant information and tailoring the dissemination for different stakeholders (policy makers,business stakeholders etc.); disseminating on-line surveys to increase the number of the stakeholders outside of the case-study level; optimizing communication within and outside the project (e.g. web communication tools, blogs, social-networks) iv) supporting e-learning tools (training on-line, interactive material etc.).
Project Context and Objectives:
1. INTRODUCTION
A better application of climatic information throughout several productive sectors need to be facilitated. The simplified scheme, where the data-providers (Met-services, climatic centers, etc) develop tailored products and dialogue directly with a large number of different type of users, does not fit with a large diffusion of climate information into several societal niches. A more complex framework is needed, considering an intermediate layer between data-providers and users, able to interact with both, to translate information and languages, to identify requirements and to trigger new perspectives.
The Clim-Run project aimed at developing a protocol for applying new methodologies and improved modeling and downscaling tools for the provision of adequate climate information at regional to local scale that is relevant to and usable by different sectors of society (policymakers, industry, cities, etc).
In this context, the main objective of the Clim-Run protocol is to support the envisioned bottom-up approach for the development of climate services and the transfer of improved climate information to stakeholders. More precisely, the protocol is intended to support this bottom-up approach at two main levels:
• the first aim of the protocol is to propose some methods and tools to be used to involve and communicate with stakeholders at the Clim-Run project level.
• the second aim of the protocol is to propose a business model for the development of climate services at the Mediterranean level, based on the results of the bottom-up approach of the project.
These two elements have been widely detailed in D1.1. Here, we would like to discuss the recommendations for the development of a Mediterranean wide climate service network, and how the Clim-Run experience can provide some key elements.
2. WHY DO WE NEED A MEDITERRANEAN CONTEXT
The Mediterranean region has been assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as one of the most vulnerable region to the impacts of climate change, particularly its southern and south-eastern parts and a lot of material is available in the Fourth Assessment Report, and all these results have been confirmed by the Fifth Assessment Report.
Main impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean coastal and marine zones are related to the consequences of changes in the meteorological conditions, mainly temperature, precipitation patterns, and extreme events, and changes at sea, temperature, acidification and sea level rise.
Profound changes may occur at the level of ecosystems and their richness in terms of biodiversity. The gradual increase of terrestrial and marine temperatures will cause the modification of natural habitats, which in the Mediterranean are already subject to intense pressures (pollution, over fishing, habitat degradation, invasive species). Equilibrium conditions of ecosystems will be disrupted and there are many uncertainties about the way in which different species will be able to adapt or otherwise to these changes – their pace of evolution being indeed slower than that of the expected climate changes. A massive loss of biodiversity, in addition to that already projected as a result of direct human pressures, is possible during the 21st century, with a drastic reduction in associated ecosystem services (supply of fresh water, productive soil conservation, resistance to invasive pests, pollination of plants, reproduction of fish resources, moderation of coastal erosion, climat regulation...). Ecosystems on land will also be affected by climate change in addition to pressures from human activity. One of the domains where increased risks are already felt is the occurrence of forest fires.
The expected rise in sea level will generate submersion of low coastal areas and the intrusion of marine water into aquifers will cause problems of groundwater salinisation. Furthermore, growing littoralisation of activities and settlements has led to the proliferation of coastal developments, most of which continue to have catastrophic effects in terms of coastal erosion.
Changes in precipitation and evapo-transpiration patterns will affect run-off, river flow and ground water, therefore the availability of freshwater. Climate change will tend to increase the differences of water availability which already exist between the North and South shores of the Mediterranean. A concerted adaptation strategy for water resources is certainly one of the most crucial needs for Mediterranean countries.
Tourism may directly suffer from problems of temperature increase, water supply scarcity, coastal erosion, changes in the marine environment, reduced marine water quality, and possible restrictions or new regulations on coastal infrastructures. Urban areas are particularly sensitive to heat waves, water scarcity, extreme events, and coastal cities may in addition be affected by sea level rise. Energy services and resources will be increasingly affected by climate change, changing trends, increasing variability, greater extremes, and the availability of water.
3. A REGIONAL MEDITERRANEAN FRAMEWORK FOR CLIMATE SERVICES
The Regional Framework for Climate Services is intended to enable the establishment of regional mechanisms for successful cooperation between all Mediterranean countries, in dealing with adaptation to climate change impacts in several sectors (coastal, tourism, energy etc) and in providing actionable climate information for present climate and near future (seasonal to decadal time frame). Its strategic objective is to ensure the Mediterranean countries build their capacity to be resilient to the risks and impacts of climate variability and of climate change through implementing adaptation measures; improving decision making and good governance, improving understanding of climate change and their effects; education and awareness; and developing and strengthening partnership and cooperation.
The Regional Framework for Climate Services can guide countries to improve and share understanding of climate change impacts, particularly in coastal and marine areas of the region. It will stimulate national capacity building and awareness raising by reviewing and revising policies to incorporate climate change risks in sectorial policies, plans and programmes, improving awareness and mobilization among key stakeholders. In addition, the Framework will help establish a regional system of exchange of information and best practices on adaptation to climate change impacts in key thematic areas of Mediterranean interest, such as freshwater resources, energy, urban areas, tourism, coastal agriculture and fisheries. It will, also, assist establishing partnerships and cooperation between the countries in the Mediterranean and with other regions.
This Regional Framework can integrate several ongoing activities developed by WMO (the GFCS), UNEP/MAP, and the European Commission. It should indicate long term goals, to be further developed in objectives that have to be achieved in the mid-term period (8-10 years), and relevant type of activities at regional and national levels for achieving the established objectives.
4. WORKING GROUP OBJECTIVES
4.1.WP1 – Climate services analysis and support.
The overall main objectives of WP1 are:
- To elaborate the concept of climate information in the context of climate services and design a bottom-up protocol for identifying and producing relevant climate information for stakeholder use.
- To develop a web-portal as a main tool for communication and interaction; and contribute to the identification of the relevant climate services for the case studies, and the advancement of the science underpinning the delivery of climate information.
4.2.WP2: New climate modelling and analysis tools
The main initial objectives of WP2 were :
2.1 Analysis and exploitation of results from already existing projects (ENSEMBLES, CIRCE, CECILIA, ACQWA, CMIP5, COMBINE, CORDEX) to deliver climate information at regional to local scales (from decadal to multidecadal) as required by the stakeholder community. Development of targeted climate analysis tools for the case studies.
2.2 Evaluation of the uncertainty for different spatial and temporal scales in relation to the critical impact indicators identified in WP1 and to the stakeholders requirements for the case studies (WP4 and related Wps). The uncertainty analysis will be put in the context of the level of “certainty” required for the specific case studies application.
2.3 Development of new modeling tools for producing targeted local scale climate information for use in the case studies.
2.4 Provision of targeted climate information at the regional to local scale based on the new modeling tools and on the requirements of the case studies.
Contrary to most of the previous projects in which the climate community was involved, the framework of the CLIM-RUN project was clearly bottom-up and not top-down. It was anticipated and accepted that this will modified the initial WP2 work plan. Indeed the scientific priorities and the dedicated man power inside the initially-defined WP2 tasks were adapted during the course of the project following the stakeholder demands and feedbacks in order to produce the requested new climate information.
In addition, the CLIM-RUN bottom-up approach and the related continuous learning process led the WP2 partners to re-think the classification of the main roles of WP2 in CLIM-RUN or more generally of the main roles of the climate research community in the climate service protocol.
4.3.WP3: Observational support and downscaling methods
Main Objectives
Collection, processing and documentation of observational, modeling and sector relevant climate data to support customized products, to assess new modeling tools and to statistically downscale climate information to the local scale.
Specific objectives
- Gather observational, model and sector relevant data (environmental parameters directly related to the sector under discussion) to support the case studies analysis and to assess new modeling tools.
- Produce the parameters and indicators directly relevant to the key sector and target locations (case studies) providing a transfer function which analytically links the stakeholder parameters to the climate variables.
- Establish a Mediterranean data repository for scientific, educational and open public use composed of climate observations (atmosphere and ocean), model results and sector relevant data and indices/indicators together with user guidance, documentation and visualization tools (developed in collaboration with WP1).
- Improve, implement and if necessary develop statistical downscaling methods to obtain climate information at local scale for the case studies.
- Provide a user-friendly downscaling portal adapted to the sectors needs thus connecting data producers /owners with end-users.
4.4. WP4 Climate services pilot case studies.
The overall objectives of WP4 are:
• To design and implement a set of pilot case studies providing a real-world context for bringing together experts on the demand and supply side of climate services
• To implement and refine the CLIM-RUN protocol strategy
Major progress towards achieving these objectives has been made through co-ordination of planning for the nine CLIM-RUN workshops which were held during the CLIMRUN project, together with various renewable energy events which were used by WP7 as opportunities for stakeholder interaction. The Climate Expert Team (CET) and Stakeholder Expert Team (SET) have played a major role in these workshops and events, as they did for the first round workshops, as well as in developing the product information sheets produced for each case study. WP4 proposed the format and content of these information sheets, and the WP4 leader has been heavily involved in reviewing them.
In summary, WP4 has played a major role in the successful implementation of the last three of the five CLIM-RUN key stages (previously identified by WP4):
• Iterative consultation and collaboration (see D4.3)
• Consolidation and collective review and assessment (see D4.3 and D4.4)
• Going forward: synthesis and recommendations (see D4.4 and Section 3 of D1.1)
During the reporting period, work has also been completed on the economic and impacts assessment (D4.5). In particular, a review has been undertaken of impact assessment methodologies and methods for assessing the economic value of climate services. In addition, three case study assessments have been completed focusing on: Mediterranean tourism flows; the cost of wild fires in Greece and Spain; and, changes in energy demand for heating and cooling in Mediterranean countries.
4.5.WP5 Tourism case studies.
The WP5 focuses on the analysis of the climate information required for tourism management and adaptation in a context of climate variability and change in the northern, southern and eastern Mediterranean. This is explored through case studies in Savoie-France, Tunisia, Cyprus and Croatia (the latest being originally attached to WP8).
4.6.WP6 Wild fires case studies
The overall objectives of WP6 are:
This case study focuses on the analysis of the climate information required in areas where forest fires represent a major hazard through organization of interaction strategies (mainly workshops) with relevant stakeholders.
The overall main objectives of WP6 are:
• The analysis of the climate information required in areas where forest fires represent a major hazard.
• The evaluation of future fire risk in the Mediterranean and in specific target regions for the coming 10 to 50 years.
• To illustrate how climate information can play an important role in the identification of vulnerable regions and in the management of existing and new forests.
4.7.WP7 Energy Case Studies.
Main Objectives
This WP focused on the analysis of the climate information required in areas where renewable energy, in particular solar, wind and hydro power plants, are rapidly developing. The work has been carried out in the context where mitigation of anthropogenic climate change is a major objective of the energy sector in the coming 10 to 50 years. The WP aimed at illustrating how climate information can play an important role in terms of location and management of new plants and, in the case of hydropower, multiple use of existing plants. The regions of interest in this case study were Spain, Morocco and Cyprus.
4.8.WP8 Integrated Case Studies.
The main aim of WP8 was to develop a range of climate services (including climate risk and adaptation products) for local stakeholders of the North Adriatic region. The overall activities followed the CLIM-RUN bottom-up approach, in order to involve and elicit stakeholders’ needs and develop products more tailored to their real requests. For this purpose, two relevant case studies were developed within the WP8: 1. the Italian case study, represented by the coastal zone of Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia Regions and considering the impacts caused by extreme climate/weather events (e.g. heavy rainfall, drought, floods), impacts affecting shoreline and marine waters (e.g. storm surge flooding, sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion) and potential impacts affecting agriculture (e.g. effects of drought); 2. the Croatian case study, which includes the whole country and analyzes especially the energy sector (e.g. hydro, solar, wind) and tourism, focusing on the application of the Tourism Comfort Index (TCI) .
Teams of different researchers were involved in the process of development of climate services, including the Stakeholder Expert Team (SET), applying the overall participative process; the Climate Expert Team (CET), providing information about climate variations, trends and extremes by means of tailored climate products. Moreover, for the specific purposes of the Italian case study, a Risk Expert Team (RET) was set-up, producing information about the potential consequences of climate change on selected natural and human coastal systems (i.e. climate risk and adaptation services).
As summarized below, during the reporting period, work has focused on the development of the second round of workshops, on the refinement of final climate and risk services and on the development of cross-cutting conclusions for the case study.
4.9.WP9 Training and dissemination of final results.
The main initial objectives of WP9 were:
Implement a training activity program designed to develop a new professional expertise lying at the interface between climate science and stakeholder application. Present and disseminate final results of the project.
Specific objectives were:
9.1 Training. Training and capacity building is an important component of the project. It has been have the role of developing a new generation of professional expertise lying at the interface between climate science and stakeholder application. This has been accomplished through the organization of training workshops and e-learning activities.
9.2. Dissemination of final results of the project. Presentation and dissemination of the final results of the project occur through the organization of a high visibility workshop and through the web portal developed in WP1. The final workshop co-organized with ECLISE-EU FP7 presented the identification of new climate application tools and research, the outcomes from the interactions between climate integrated research and service communities, and the analysis of the impacts of climate information on environment and society.
Project Results:
SUMMARY
A main achievement has been the CLIM-RUN Protocol based on the experience acquainted by Case Study WPs (WP5-8), as well as by WP4, to define the iterative process regarding the development of tailored climate information and products, but also to envision a business model for the development of a regional climate service based on the results of the bottom-up approach of the project.
A detailed methodology was developed (WP4) for the CLIM-RUN case studies (WP5-8). While implemented as an end-to-end process over the course of CLIM-RUN, this methodology could be implemented as an iterative, rolling process within an operational climate service.
A “Case Studies Portal” has been finalized to provide a quick access to all the main dissemination products of the project. The Case Studies Portal offers a visual approach of available information making it easy accessible to stakeholders, scientists and policymakers.
A review of potential impacts of climate variability and change at the case study level has been performed at the case study level, accordingly to available information and stakeholder needs. The indicator choice has been made with the aim of improving the scientist knowledge but also to be usable to stakeholders to implement adaptation measures and strategies at their decision-making level.
Finally, a set of recommendations and best-practices, based on the bottom-up experience of CLIM-RUN, has been proposed to support the European Commission and the WMO initiatives towards the development and the implementation of effective climate services in the Mediterranean region. Some of them have already been shared with positive results with international and/or regional stakeholders.
Here a summary of the main specific achievements of CLIMRUN:
• The use of new climate variables (rarely analysed in other projects) and of new dedicated sectoral indices was driven by the case study WPs following stakeholder requests. It was well dealt with by WP2 partners in order to provide very original new climate information
• The development of new climate modelling tools based on the “translation” of the stakeholder requests was a successful step for 3 members of WP2 (ENEA, UNESCO-ICTP, CNRM) and allows, despite some delays, to deliver very original new climate information. It also opens new possibilities for future climate services
• Several ‘transfer functions’ within the CLIMRUN project have been applied to several economic sectors. Here ‘transfer function’ refers to functions, mathematical equations or relations that link pure meteorological and climatic variables with impacts on activity sectors. In Deliverable 3.4 a fire weather index (FWI) was used as transfer function for fire risk and physiological equivalent temperature (PET) as transfer function for apparent temperature. Additionally, the concept of heating and cooling degree days has been used as transfer function for energy demand. Finally, transfer functions for tourism have been used, specifically the TCI, BCI and Humidex indices.
• A statistical downscaling portal was developed (https://www.meteo.unican.es/downscaling/climrun and delivered by the UC partner to connect data producers with end-users in order to satisfy the general public and stakeholders' requirements. Several statistical downscaling methodologies were implemented in this portal and this tool has been considered in Deliverable 3.5 to analyze the performance of the statistical downscaling methods for non-standard parameters.
• In Deliverable 3.6 the CLIM-RUN Data Portal was developed (http://climrun.cyi.ac.cy/) serving both climate specialists and stakeholders and the general public via the following features: i) The LAS server, which provides regional and global, gridded climate data from observations and model output, plus visualization and basic statistical analysis tools; ii) user-friendly platform to access climate data for various of the case study sites in tabular and graphical form, as well as option for direct downloading of the raw data (with permissions depending on the data source/owner).
• Since the CLIMRUN project was designed to be a bottom-up approach all the training activities were planned according with this structure. For example the second training workshop was shaped around the idea of how a stakeholder can learn to use climate services and how a climate scientist can learn to produce suitable research products for climate services. The workshop provided an interdisciplinary arena were the two community of stakeholders and climate scientists could interact and work together on, for example, the development plan of a city that could take into account possible actions needed for climate change adaptation.
• On the same line has been organized the dissemination of scientific results of the project in international meeting like for example European Geosciences Union (EGU) and European Meteorological Society (EMS) annual general assemblies. During these events meeting with stakeholders were organized too, to present to a wider audience the Global Framework of Climate Services (GFCS)
WP's ACHIEVEMENTS
1.1.WP1 – Climate services analysis and support.
1.1.1.Achievements
A relevant achievement has been the CLIM-RUN Protocol based on the experience acquainted by Case Study WPs (WP5-8), as well as by WP4, to define the iterative process regarding the development of tailored climate information and products, but also to envision a business model for the development of a regional climate service based on the results of the bottom-up approach of the project.
A “Case Studies Portal” has been and provided a quick access to all the main dissemination products of the project. The Case Studies Portal offers a visual approach of available information making it easy accessible to stakeholders, scientists and policymakers.
A review of potential impacts of climate variability and change at the case study level has been performed at the case study level, accordingly to available information and stakeholder needs. The indicator choice has been made with the aim of improving the scientist knowledge but also to be usable to stakeholders to implement adaptation measures and strategies at their decision-making level.
Finally, a set of recommendations and best-practices, based on the bottom-up experience of CLIM-RUN, has been proposed to support the European Commission and the WMO initiatives towards the development and the implementation of effective climate services in the Mediterranean region. Some of them have already been shared with positive results with international and/or regional stakeholders.
1.2.WP2: New climate modelling and analysis tools
1.2.1.Achievements
Overall all the WP2 initial objectives and WP2 tasks described above have been achieved and all the milestones and deliverables were completed despite some delays. Those delays are mostly explained by late arrival of some climate data (CMIP5 was late with respect to initial schedule leading also to late arrival of related CORDEX data) and by delays in the synthesis of the stakeholder needs for some case study. On the whole, those delays did not impact the production of the new climate information by WP2 and their transfer and use by the other WPs.
Contrary to most of the previous projects in which the climate community was involved, the framework of the CLIM-RUN project was clearly bottom-up and not top-down. It was anticipated and accepted that this will modified the initial WP2 work plan. Indeed the scientific priorities and the dedicated man power inside the initially-defined WP2 tasks were adapted during the course of the project following the stakeholder demands and feedbacks in order to produce the requested new climate information.
In addition, the CLIM-RUN bottom-up approach and the related continuous learning process led the WP2 partners to re-think the classification of the main roles of WP2 in CLIM-RUN or more generally of the main roles of the climate research community in the climate service protocol. We conclude that WP2 activities can be mainly summarized by four main tasks instead of the initial three and with slightly different meaning and naming. Note however that the new four tasks fully cover the initially-planed three tasks. We thought that those new tasks described below are representative of what could be the real tasks of European climate research bodies (the so-called climate tier of the CLIM-RUN protocol and CLIM-RUN recommendations, see Del 1.1 and 1.4) in order to efficiently contribute to the developing Mediterranean climate service. Those four main tasks are:
Task A: Sharing climate expertise (not planned in the initial tasks)
Task B: Certification of climate “tools” (models/databases/information/products) (partly included in Task 2.1)
Task C: Provision of tailored climate products (included in Task2.1 and Task 2.3)
Task D: Performing new research developments to deliver new climate services (included in Task 2.2)
Before a detailed description of the work during the second half of the project, here is a summarize of the main achievements done by WP2:
• Despite some delays, all the WP2 milestones and deliverables of the second reporting period (M19-M36) have been achieved and delivered to the project web site (MS6 leaded by UNESCO-ICTP, MS7 by ENEA, D2.2 by IC3, D2.3 by UNESCO-ICTP, D2.4 by CMCC; D2.5 by USMD and IC3, D2.6 by ENEA).
• WP2 members considered as Climate Experts were very active in the CET-SET pairs to prepare and drive the production of new climate information leading to a large number of information sheets
• The analysis of already existing climate databases to produce new tailored climate information in respond to user needs worked very well for all the temporal scales requested: past climate variability (all WP2 partners), seasonal forecast (IC3, CMCC), decadal forecast (IC3, USMD, CMCC) and future regional projections (ENEA, UNESCO-ICTP, CNRM)
• The use of new climate variables (rarely analysed in other projects) and of new dedicated sectoral indices was driven by the case study WPs following stakeholder requests. It was well dealt with by WP2 partners in order to provide very original new climate information
• The development of new climate modelling tools based on the “translation” of the stakeholder requests was a successful step for 3 members of WP2 (ENEA, UNESCO-ICTP, CNRM) and allows, despite some delays, to deliver very original new climate information. It also opens new possibilities for future climate services
• WP2 partners were very active in the training and communication activities in WP9 mainly as teachers of the two Summer schools and as climate advisors for the communication activities.
• WP2 partners also strongly participate in the final part of the project to discuss and set up the final CLIM-RUN protocol and to deliver the final CLIM-RUN recommendations using the experience gained during the project.
1.3.WP3: Observational support and downscaling methods
1.3.1.Achievements
The term ‘transfer function’ within the CLIMRUN project refers to functions, mathematical equations or relations that link pure meteorological and climatic variables with impacts on activity sectors. As such they can be seen as simple impact models for several economic sectors and activities such as tourism, human comfort, fire risk and energy demand. Other definitions for transfer functions, for example in relation to proxy reconstructions and downscaling, also exist, but in CLIMRUN the above definition has been used to describe the use of transfer functions. In Deliverable 3.4 a fire weather index (FWI) was used as transfer function for fire risk and physiological equivalent temperature (PET) as transfer function for apparent temperature. Additionally, the concept of heating and cooling degree days has been used as transfer function for energy demand. Finally, transfer functions for tourism have been used, specifically the TCI, BCI and Humidex indices. Deliverable 3.4 (related to Task 3.4 -downscaling methods and portal) describes in detail the theory and the physics behind the transfer functions used for tourism, human comfort, fire risk and energy demand and includes an application of these transfer functions for the case study of Cyprus. Daily meteorological output from several regional climate models for the recent past (1061-1990) has been used to derive the above mentioned indices over Cyprus and produce maps to demonstrate the application of transfer functions for the respective sectors.
In a previous Deliverable (3.2) a statistical downscaling portal was developed (https://www.meteo.unican.es/downscaling/climrun and delivered by the UC partner to connect data producers with end-users in order to satisfy the general public and stakeholders' requirements. Several statistical downscaling methodologies were implemented in this portal and this tool has been considered in Deliverable 3.5 to analyze the performance of the statistical downscaling methods for non-standard parameters. One advantage of the statistical downscaling versus the dynamical approach is that the former offers the possibility to produce local information of non-climatic (or, non-standard) variables such as wind power, river flows or indices which are computed from several meteorological variables. In the last group we considered here two indices of interest for the CLIM-RUN project: the Fire Weather Index (FWI) and the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET). These are commonly considered by stakeholders from the wild fires and tourism sectors respectively and in particular, they are of great interest for stakeholders working in representative target areas defined in CLIM-RUN: Spain and Greece for wild fires and Croatia for tourism. The suitability of performing statistical downscaling to these two non-standard parameters was explored in Deliverable 3.5. Both direct and component downscaling approaches were tested using the UC statistical downscaling portal (thus representing work of ask 3.4 - downscaling methods and portal). According to the two experiments applied in this study for the FWI and the PET over different regions, results from both methodologies are quite similar. Therefore, for those impact studies where the intermediate climate information is not relevant, it is possible to apply the direct downscaling in order to provide local scale information for a particular climate related index.
In Deliverable 3.6 the CLIM-RUN Data Portal was developed (http://climrun.cyi.ac.cy/) serving both climate specialists and stakeholders and the general public via the following features: i) The LAS server, which provides regional and global, gridded climate data from observations and model output, plus visualization and basic statistical analysis tools; ii) user-friendly platform to access climate data for various of the case study sites in tabular and graphical form, as well as option for direct downloading of the raw data (with permissions depending on the data source/owner). Work in this deliverable satisfied Task 3.3 (establishing a Mediterranean data repository).
Deliverable 3.7 pertains to downscaling of percentiles and extremes events indicators and contributes to Tasks 3.2 and 3.4. It essentially provides an overview of the more specific and focused work that has been undertaken by five partners. In the majority of cases, this work has led to the production of specific climate products and related CLIM-RUN information sheets.Particurly work in this deliverable includes: i) Mediterranean analysis of temperature and precipitation extremes (case study results for Greece, north Adriatic and Cyprus); ii) Temperature and precipitation extremes in a multiple physics ensemble of RegCM4 (reliability, skill, past and future changes); iii) Extreme precipitation in CNRM Med-CORDEX simulations; iv) Statistical and dynamical downscaling of extreme temperature over Spain; v) Wind extremes
1.4.WP4 Significant results (highlights)
During the last 18 months (as during the first 18 months of CLIM-RUN) WP4 has provided co-ordination and practical support for implementation of the case studies (WP5 to WP8).
A detailed methodology was developed for the last three of the five CLIM-RUN key stages. These key stages have given structure to the case studies and have provided a sense of progression. While implemented as an end-to-end process over the course of CLIM-RUN, they could be implemented as an iterative, rolling process within an operational climate service. While WP4 has provided this common overall structure and co-ordination, the key stages and methods were also designed to permit flexibility and tailoring to the individual CLIM-RUN case studies.
The perception and data needs questionnaire developed by WP4 during the first reporting period provided a principal means for identifying user needs and understanding their decision making contexts. Information from this questionnaire and from discussions and interviews with stakeholders was used during the second reporting period to translate these needs into specific products. The utility of the questionnaire has been further reviewed during the current reporting period, by both the case-study teams and WP4. It was concluded that the information sought through the questionnaire was desirable for project partners (both climate and stakeholder experts) to have and all the questions are considered to have potential utility. Using the questions as the basis for semi-structured interviews is, however, generally seen as the optimal method for seeking the information though is very time consuming compared with paper or online surveys.
WP4 provided planning support and co-ordination for the second round of CLIM-RUN workshops which were held between May and October 2013. Direct contact and discussion took place with around 160 stakeholders participating in the nine CLIM-RUN workshops together with four non-CLIM-RUN events used by WP7 as opportunities for stakeholder interaction.
The main role for WP4 following these workshops was to produce a synthesis report covering both workshop preparations and the outcomes (D4.3) and another on the common messages emerging from the case studies (D4.4). The common messages have emerged despite the recognition that every case study and every stakeholder and user or potential user is different. Some of the common messages may perhaps seem rather obvious, but they are based on the real-world experiences of the CLIM-RUN case studies and the detailed supporting evidence presented in the individual case-study reports and deliverables.
WP4 has also illustrated the potential of economic analysis both in the context of case-study impacts (with worked examples focused on Mediterranean tourism flows, the cost of wild fires in Greece and Spain, and energy demand for heating and cooling in case-study countries) and for evaluating the benefits of climate services.
There has been a great deal of interest in the CLIM-RUN experiences and methodologies from other projects and initiatives such as ECLISE, EUPORIAS, JPI-Climate and the Climate Services Partnership. The WP4 leader has spoken about CLIM-RUN at a number of these events, as well as at the EGU and EMS/ECAM assemblies and workshops in Latin America and the Caribbean.
While WP4 is considered to have made significant progress, some practical and organisational aspects hindered progress at times. Due to the project timescale, it was difficult for both WP4 and the case-study partners to be ‘learning as we went’. Similarly it was difficult not to have had all the project infrastructure (e.g. the case-study and data portals) in place from the outset. It would have been good to have had more time for discussion between the partners on the products (i.e. the information sheets) and also on standards in terms of presentation and, in particular, the use of multi-model ensembles and uncertainty.
In addition, a number of gaps were identified, which can be considered as part of the significant results since they inform the future development of climate services. Activities such as the development and analysis of questionnaires and surveys would benefit from social science expertise. Communication and visualisation experts are needed to help improve communication and products such as information sheets. More general background information and guidance on issues such as model reliability and uncertainty is needed, as well as explaining the distinctions between seasonal forecasts, decadal predictions and climate change projections. And more capacity building and internal discussion is needed between climate and stakeholder experts (as well as between climate service providers and users).
Finally, from the WP4 perspective it is concluded that the CLIM-RUN bottom-up approach engaging stakeholders in the case studies (through WP5 to WP8) combined with top-down scientific expertise and responsibility (provided by WP2 and WP3) represents an appropriate model for Mediterranean climate services.
1.5.WP5 Tourism case studies.
1.5.1.Significant results (highlights)
The significant results of the last 18 months of the project concerning WP5 can be summarized as follows.
Following the first workshops, the collaboration between SET and CET in answering user needs can be considered successful for a first experiment. Through continuous and effective interaction, it was possible to specify and design a set of climate products for each case study. During this stage, although some interactions with stakeholders have been made (for a few products), it was difficult to maintain an iterative process with them. Several factors helped to explain this result: the excessive need of products specification, the technical nature of the discussions, the gap between research concerns and stakeholder operational concerns, etc. This effective interaction between CET and SET also confirmed the need to involve "intermediaries" (such as impact researchers and boundary workers) to play this role of interface with final end-users. They could collaborate, in one hand, with climatologists to translate the user needs and in other hand, with end-users in order to design more tailored and operational products. This fed the definition of a “three tier” business model (climate tier, stakeholder tier and intermediate tier) for climate services, by WP1 (D1.1).
This collaboration has nevertheless led to the completion of twelve information sheets for the tourism sector in the Mediterranean (common and specific needs). They were discussed and assessed with the stakeholders during the second round of workshops. This second stage allowed to explore in-depth the current demand of climate services in Mediterranean tourism. The current demand has appeared:
- heterogeneous, in obvious relation with the diversity of the tourism sector itself;
- highly concentrated on small geographical areas demanding high resolution products (often unreachable);
- focused on impact more that climate. CLIM-RUN did not include climate change impact modelling. As it was initially envisaged, some of the subjects of the project were a little deceptive for stakeholders;
- focused on the short to mid-term time horizons. Very high demand for seasonal up to decadal forecast. Few direct assets are planned beyond twenty years (if one excludes spatial planning and infrastructures related to tourism).
Two important common field of concern emerged and can also be considered as significant results:
- seasonal forecasts : seasonal temperature not only at destination level but also in the home market, sea surface temperature forecast, indicators for summer season in the mountains areas (rainfall, temperature, extreme events),
- the development of tourism specific indexes, like the Tourism comfort index (TCI).
Finally, tourism could be considered as a good test for the development of a climate services architecture, given:
- its economic importance, especially in the Mediterranean;
- its high dependence on climate parameters;
- the awareness of tourism stakeholders of climate change issues;
- the diversity of climate parameters, spatial domains and time horizons potentially involved.
This capacity is, however, limited by high proportion of SMEs; by the lack of innovation in the sector; by predominant short-term visions and a strong focus on economic concerns and (the current) post-crisis recovery; and by the general lack of public support to the sector, contrary to other economic branches, like agriculture. Therefore, there is an obvious need to associate tourism in future partnerships, particularly in the Mediterranean, but the tourism itself is not likely to take the lead. The sector will be more reactive than proactive.
1.6.WP6 Significant results (highlights)
The highlights of the last 18 months of the project concerning WP6 can be summarized as follows:
• The establishment of FWI critical thresholds for Greece using fire occurrence data obtained by Greek Forest Services’ database. This led to the classification of Greece into three distinct areas of different fire behaviour (the western, the northern and the eastern/southern Greece).
• The study of the sensitivity of the fire weather index regarding mean daily and noon meteorological input values, noon values being the strictly correct input but not always available.
• The identification of adaptation options for the Greek forests against fires based on continuous interaction with local stakeholders.
Following the first workshop, through continuous and effective interaction with stakeholders (with role of the SET member being crucial), we proceeded to the division between them into three main categories, in order to develop and provide them with the most adequate and relative climate information and products. in short, these are: a) Short term fire risk forecast for 3 days to address the needs of short term fire planners b) Long term fire risk and other fire related indices' changes due to climate change (time horizon up to 2050 and up to 2100) to address the needs of long term fire policy makers c) Educational software tool to expand knowledge in fire risk indices in order to address the needs for in-depth training.
In addition, a number of gaps were identified, which can be considered as part of the significant results since they inform the future development of climate services. These gaps concern a further assessment of the fire risk index together with the necessary adjustment (reallocation) of fire risk categories which correspond to local conditions. Furthermore, the future introduction of socioeconomic factors (even in selected local areas, e.g. activity of pastoralists in Crete) that influence ignition of forest fires was considered to be useful and should be included in future research, as stakeholders believe that most fires in Greece start due to human causes in combination with meteorological conditions. Finally, the majority of stakeholders believed that vegetation and land use information should be integrated with meteorological data (FWI), so as to provide a more robust tool, in order to assess fire vulnerability in Greece.
1.7.WP7 Energy Case Studies.
1.7.1.Significant results (highlights)
IC3 (Spanish case study) has carried out the second round of stakeholder workshops where the seasonal forecast products were tested. New, improved forecast graphics have been developed and disseminated to stakeholders via channels of communications tailored specifically to the energy sector. This includes the ARECS web portal and newsletter. ENEA and PIK (Morocco case study) has carried out the second round of stakeholder workshops at the Maghreb Wind Energy Conference, which is the only wind energy industry-focused event in Morocco in 2013 and provided us with the unique opportunity to present and directly discuss three climate information products with Moroccan wind energy stakeholders.
EEWRC (Cyprus case study) organised the second CLIMRUN WP7 workshop "Climate Services for the Energy Sector on Cyprus" following-on to the first one in 2011. To better prepare for the second meeting with stakeholders, we carried out an extensive survey of the Energy Sector in Cyprus. This survey was the basis for the selection of invitees to the workshop and proved most useful to reach the major institutions involved in the Energy Sector in Cyprus.
DHMZ (Croatia case study) co-organised the second round workshop by DHMZ and UNDP Croatia. Local stakeholders were represented from academic, research, business, consultancy and regulator’s organisations and companies. DHMZ have a created an online Wind Atlas, as a basis for wind resource estimation in Croatia.
1.8.WP8 Integrated Case Studies.
1.8.1.Achievements
The past and current climate and climate variability for Croatia were evaluated from the DHMZ observations archive and from regional climate model (RCM) simulations (RegCM and the ENSEMBLES project); future climate projections were derived from RCMs at 35 km and 25 km resolutions. However, because of complex orography, land-sea contrast and well indented coastline of the Croatian Adriatic, further downscaling to a finer resolution may be required. Although climate projections are fairly certain about future temperature increase and despite the growing awareness of its potential effects, it appears that the adaptation to climate change and associated planning in Croatia’s tourism sector is of no major concern. This may be partly due to the fact that so far no adverse signs and effects of climate change are particularly evident in Croatia, i.e. extreme weather and climate events (e.g. extended droughts) in the recent past may still be considered as a part of natural variability. Because of uncertainties both in weather and the Earth climate system, DHMZ forecasts at all time horizons (from short to seasonal) are now mostly based on probabilistic approach. Some energy stakeholders, however, do not consider this as the basis for their operations, but they intend to integrate the probabilistic approach into their energy planning, providing more tangible information on probabilistic forecasts by DHMZ. The consensus among RCMs is that by the mid-21st century climate change for precipitation over the Croatian Adriatic region and its hinterland is generally uncertain.
Based on the key variables and impacts identified by stakeholders through the first workshop and survey (D8.1) and on the feedbacks of the second workshop and questionnaire (D8.2) risk experts developed two main risk products: 1. pluvial flood maps for the Municipality of Venice; 2. sea-level rise inundation risk maps for the overall coast of Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Hazard scenarios were developed for the period 2041-2050 integrating climate information coming from regional climate models with site-specific topographic and permeability information. Moreover, in order to apply the Regional Risk Assessment methodology for climate change impact assessment (D8.2 and D1.3) vulnerability and exposure assessments were performed for different receptors (i.e. urban areas, infrastructures, agricultural, areas, beaches) by means of vulnerability matrixes and indicators related to bio-physical and socio-economic factors. Finally the GIS-based Decision support System for Coastal Climate change impact assessment (DESYCO) was used to construct hazard, vulnerability and risk maps for pluvial flood and sea level rise risks. The Deliverable D8.4 (Cross-cutting conclusions) describes how the overall CLIM-RUN protocol was applied to the North Adriatic case study, highlighting some examples of good practices and general conclusions about the products and some future recommendations for the development of climate services in coastal zones at the Mediterranean scale.
1.9.WP9 Training and dissemination of final results.
1.9.1.Overall objectives and main achievements of the WP
All the WP9 initial objectives and WP9 tasks described above have been achieved and all the milestones and deliverables were completed.
Since the CLIMRUN project was designed to be a bottom-up approach all the training activities were planned according with this structure. For example the second training workshop was shaped around the idea of how a stakeholder can learn to use climate services and how a climate scientist can learn to produce suitable research products for climate services. The workshop provided an interdisciplinary arena were the two community of stakeholders and climate scientists could interact and work together on, for example, the development plan of a city that could take into account possible actions needed for climate change adaptation. The workshop had several stakeholders among the lectures and the students were very interested in learning how the climate information can or cannot be directly usable from the stakeholder community. This was a really innovative way to organize a workshop because it represented a surrogate of the CLIMRUN project in only a week of activity.
On the same line has been organized the dissemination of scientific results of the project in international meeting like for example European Geosciences Union (EGU) and European Meteorological Society (EMS) annual general assemblies. During these events meeting with stakeholders were organized too, to present to a wider audience the Global Framework of Climate Services (GFCS)
Potential Impact:
IMPACTS.
If climate services are to make a major contribution to improving people's adaptive capacity, it is important to identify where such services can add value (in terms of improvements in adaptive capacity and adaptation outcomes); which types of actors are capable of using them (e.g. is the information usable by households and firms autonomously or does it require some sort of collective or governmental action?); and therefore what form such services should take.
Here we would like to provide examples of potential impacts in three main sectors: tourism, wild-fires, energy.
1.Tourism.
In this section we present the effects of climate change on tourist flows in the Mediterranean region during the 21st century, based on the activities of WP5. The study considers an A1B climate scenario and uses the Hamburg Tourism Model (HTM), which includes temperature as one of its determinants of tourist flows.
We consider the effect of climate change on (domestic and international) tourist arrivals at country level for 22 Mediterranean countries. In addition we use regional downscaling to consider the same effects for 16 subnational regions spread across Croatia, France and Tunisia. Results suggest that, other things being equal, by 2100, tourist numbers in most of the downscaled regions may decline by 20-38% compared to a counterfactual without climate change. Compared to other tourism analysis carried out within the CLIM-RUN project this section adds value by considering the interplay between domestic and international tourism.
We mainly consider results of the A1B scenario, i.e. the one with the lowest population growth, but characterized by strong global economic growth. Under such a scenario, the Mediterranean countries are penalized. Here, we concentrate on the CLIM-RUN tourism case studies: Croatia, France, Tunisia and Cyprus. The last two suffer the most severe impacts, being part of (or close to) the world’s most severely impacted regions, such as Africa and the Middle East.
It should be noted that climate change in the countries outside the region (not considered here) could also have an important effect by influencing the destination choice of both domestic and foreign tourists. This would therefore constitute useful additional information for tourist industry stakeholders. Furthermore, the results should be treated with some caution since they show the effect on tourist flows of mean annual temperature per zone (a single annual variable), thereby failing to account for the geographical concentration of tourists within each zone and for changes in seasonal temperatures. Furthermore, temperature is not the only determinant of tourist comfort. For example a composite measure, such as the Tourist Climate Index, would give a broader picture.
Our analysis has highlighted substantial adverse effects of climate change at the case study locations in the long run, which can result in visitor number reductions of 20-38% in most locations, with a minimum of 20% and a maximum of 54% respectively in Bizerte-Beja and Gafsa-Tozeur area (main touristic areas in Tunisia). Given the proportionality between tourist numbers and the revenues of the tourist sector, these impacts are likely to translate into analogous economic losses for the tourist sectors of these areas. Moreover, a quick inspection of data gathered in WP5 shows that international tourism dominates the sector at most locations (with the exception of Savoie, international tourist numbers are usually one order of magnitude larger than domestic ones). Thus the strong negative impact on international tourism would have implications in terms of international currencies revenues and in terms of trade balances of the affected countries.
Although substantial and significant, these results must nevertheless be taken with caution. For one thing, these results are based on the sole effect of climate change on mean annual temperatures. Thus they cannot account for seasonal variability and therefore, the adaptation options provided by the adjustment of the tourist season to the changed climate conditions. Nor they can account for other important characteristics of climate that have a bearing on the comfort of tourists, such as wind and humidity, which are usually considered in approaches based on biometric indexes such as the Tourist Climate Index (Mieczkowski,1985; Amelung & Moreno, 2009), applied also within the Clim-Run project. Nevertheless, they complement the TCI approach nicely, by accounting for the interplay between domestic and international tourism and by providing a comprehensive perspective of global tourist flows and their likely alterations in a warmer world.
2. Wildfires.
Wildfires are an important part of forest ecosystem dynamics in Europe, contributing to forest renewal and insect & disease control (EEA, 2012). However, they can also cause extensive damage including loss of human life, adverse health impacts and damage to property, infrastructure and land-based industries (Bassi & Kettunen, 2008). Climate is an important determinant of long-term wildfire risk, as noted by Flannigan et al. (2000 and 2009). This section provides an overview of the Fire Weather Index (one of the main methodologies used to quantify the intensity of potential forest fires) as well as exploring the potential future burned area and costs in an A1B climate scenario for Greece and Spain.
Fire danger depends on a number of factors that may be fixed or change over time (e.g. weather, fuel type and condition, forest management practices, demographics, etc.) (Merrill and Alexander, 1987). Even if human activity is considered the main cause of forest fires in Europe , the total burned area in Mediterranean Europe, and thus the overall impact of wildfires, varies significantly from year to year especially because of weather conditions (Camia and Amatulli, 2009). Strong winds and high temperatures following prolonged drought periods leads to frequent extreme fire danger conditions in the Mediterranean basin (San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2012). These conditions are estimated to worsen in the context of the expected climatic change (Giannakopoulos et al., 2009). These changes in wildfire regimes may have strong impacts on natural resources and ecosystems stability, with consequent direct and indirect economic losses. Making use of meteorological observations of temperature, relatively humidity, wind speed, and 24-hr precipitation measured at noon an index of fire danger is defined in order to predict peak burning conditions expected to occur. The Fire Weather Index (FWI) is a numeric rating of fire intensity, suitable for use as a general index of fire danger (Natural Resources Canada, 2008, Van Wagner, 1987). This index is already widely used in the literature (San Miguel-Ayanz et al. 2003) and it is the fire danger rating system used in the European Forest Fire Information System.
In line with the CLIM-RUN wildfires case study the current assessment focuses on Greece. As a term of comparison the projected evolution of fire weather and the estimated damages is also calculated for Spain. Both are considered among the most vulnerable European countries, in terms of climate change fire weather in the Mediterranean basin.
Using historical data, a statistical relationship can be established between FWI and forest burned area. Once established, this relationship can then be applied to the projected FWI conditions produced by climate change. Some studies have used a statistical technique known as MARS (Multivariate Adaptive Regression Spline) to establish this relationship (Balshi et al., 2009). This technique is seen as advantageous since it is non-parametric in nature, and is therefore able to capture relationships between the dependent variable and multiple explanatory variables that it would be difficult to reveal with other methods.
The observed annual burned area, averaged over the period 1980-2010, shows that Spain has a much larger area affected by wildfires then Greece. Observed Average Annual Burned Area in ha ranges from 47 for Greece to 173 for Spain (the total for the Mediterranean is 471 ha). In terms of burned area the two countries of the current case study make up almost 50% of the wildfire affected area in the EU Mediterranean region (which includes also Italy, Southern France, and Portugal). The results of the linear regression analysis shows the increase in burned area for 2070-2100, compared to baseline conditions, that is expected from climate-induced changes in the FWI. This projected an increase in the index of 7.5 points for Greece and 10.3 for Spain (from a lower starting point). Using linear regression analysis, we estimate this FWI change to lead to an increase in burned area for Greece and Spain of 23% (11,000 ha.) and 67% (117,000 ha) respectively.
The case study has important limitations that have to be made explicit. Firstly, the climate projections come from a single GCM/RCM run and thus do not address uncertainty in the climate scenarios. Secondly, the assessment makes use of a simple linear regression relationship on national-level data. The small number of observations (not spatially disaggregated) and the impossibility of including additional variables in the statistical model, limit considerably the significance of the relationships calculated. For these reasons we underline that the values found are only illustrative and serve as a numerical example of application of the assessment methodology.
In terms of the socioeconomic value of forest fires, we have seen that a comprehensive assessment would take account of restoration cost, loss of life & health, damage to property and livelihoods and the value of ecosystem services (use and non-use). We have also seen that once these factors are taken into account, the total value of a forest fire is highly case specific, meaning that geographical resolution is an important part of any assessment. In the case of Spain, several studies exist that have attempted to quantify some of these effects on a case-specific basis. Barrio et al. (2007) found that in the case of Galicia, the most costly of these impacts was the direct loss of wood and firewood and the cost of the direct emissions of CO2. However, in both Spain and Greece further research is needed to produce cost estimates that can be applied more generally.
3. Energy
In order to assess the economic impacts of climate change and climate change information in CLIMRUN energy case studies have been used Macroeconomic energy models who can provide estimates on the energy demand and on the energy production mix, showing the share of renewable in the total future energy production in any climate change scenarios. The possible models chosen in CLIMRUN has been POLES (Prospective Outlook for the Long term Energy System), a global sectoral simulation model for the development of energy scenarios until 2050. This model version has been used for the purpose of this study to analyse the impact of climate change on domestic consumption in the Mediterranean region. The global model setting includes all policies that are enacted prior to the base year (2010) but proposed policies (e.g. those designed to reach a country's Copenhagen's pledge) are not considered. Six different climate scenarios have been analysed, including a "no climate change scenario" and the climate projections up to 2050 stemming from the five CIRCE models.
In order to account for the impact of climate change on the energy system in POLES, the parameters of the energy system that are affected by climate (e.g. heating and cooling demand) were identified and a mathematical function describing the linkage of these parameters with climatic variables (e.g. heating and cooling degree days) was introduced in the model. The data on cooling and heating degree days have been calculated using daily mean surface temperatures stemming from five distinct climate scenarios (CIRCE) and were introduced in the model in order to study the impact of temperature change on heating and cooling demand in countries of the Mediterranean region.
Compared with a baseline scenario where the climate does not vary, a notable change in the fuel mix can be observed in 2050 versus 1990 in scenarios with high average temperature changes such as scenario of the Max Planck Model for the CIRCE experiments. This change is characterised by an increase in electricity consumption in all scenarios due to the increased use of cooling systems. In this scenario, electricity is about 27% of the energy used for space heating and cooling in the average Southern European household. While biomass remains a competitive fuel in 2050, the share of natural gas for space heating is predicted to experience a slight decrease. This might be perceived as an alleviating effect on European energy security issues related to its heavy dependency on natural gas supplies from Russia (in Central Europe), the Middle East and Northern Africa (in Southern Europe). However, the increasing use of cooling devices, particularly during hot summer months will certainly have stringent impacts on electricity peak demand. This is becoming increasingly problematic in Europe due to high loads, interconnectivity issues, a higher share of renewables in electricity production, water scarcity and prolonged periods of drought that are predicted to become important consequences of climate change, particularly in the Mediterranean region.
Summarizing, the residential energy consumption in the modified POLES model version responds well to the corresponding climate signals, and more importantly, that the latter dominate the demand for both heating and cooling. Overall, the results show that a warming climate will affect cooling demand in southern Europe analysed in CLIMRUN WP7 case study for summer through the increased usage of air conditioning systems while in winter the demand for heating will decrease substantially due to milder outside temperatures. The net result in residential energy consumption due to lesser heating in winter and more cooling in summer appears to be favorable to the household bills in this region since the savings on heating are projected to offset the increasing demand for cooling.
DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS EXPLOITATION
The dissemination and exploitation of CLIMRUN results will be developed through 4 main axes.
1. Web Portals
The CLIM-RUN Web site and Case Studies Portal are located in an ENEA server. This will allow to host them also in the future years, with no restriction and for free.
In order to disseminate to the stakeholders and to public at large the results of the many initiatives and workshops of CLIM-RUN experience the “Case Studies Portal” (link: http://www.climrun.eu/case-studies) was created with the aim to provide a quick access to the most significant results of the different case studies, through a visual and interactive approach.
Differently from the main website, targeted mainly for scientists and experts already aware of the CLIM-RUN project, the Case Studies Portal offers a quick and visual-based access to the available information with the aid of video resources facilitating the use of the main results of the project to a wide audience: stakeholders, researchers, students, etc.
The Portal is made up of a clickable map of Case Studies with link to information sheets, icons for web applications, movies.
The “Information sheet” is a two-page document with the following sections:
i. Target groups;
ii. Relevance to the case-study requirements;
iii. The approach;
iv. The product; and,
v. Making the product usable.
Keywords clearly indicate for which sector and cases studies each product is relevant. Contact emails are given on each information sheet in order to give the possibility to obtain more information or to provide some feedback to the authors. The aim of the Case Studies map is to give in a visual and synthetic way information concerning the considered case study and sectors, about the main results achieved in the course of the project. At the end of the project more than 30 information sheets will be made available on the Case Studies section and in the Products section of CLIM-RUN web site.
Web Applications
The following web applications are the main source of interaction and data visualization of Case Studies Portal:
i)Climate Local Information WebGIS on Tourism Index (TCI), Wind Power (WP) and Fire Weather Index (FWI), made by ENEA, Italy
ii)WebGIS focused on Greece (environmental information and wild fires), made by NOA, Greece
iii)Downscaling Portal for wild fire and tourism studies, made by University of Cantabria, Spain.
Videos and animations
Movies are an effective way to disseminate CLIM-RUN results and main message concerning important concepts about climate services. The Case Studies Portal offers five different videos hosted publicly on Youtube and Vimeos
i)Climate Local Information in the Mediterranean region Responding to User Needs
The video made by ENEA and CMCC offers an introduction to the project through a series of interviews to climate experts of the CLIM-RUN project who present the project while describing the main aims of the project, the participatory process and stakeholders involvement, the climate models and products, and the case studies developed and analyzed within the project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s52cMvCUSlI
ii) Climate services for the North Adriatic coastal zone: A description of the North Adriatic case study
The video is made by CMCC. Climate experts and stakeholders tell the experience of the integrated North Adriatic case study within the CLIM-RUN project while describing the development of climate services tailored to coastal zone managers' needs, an essential requirement to mainstream climate change adaptation in the definition of sustainable plans, policies and programs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDraRXSEZG82
iii) Climate Forecasting for Renewable Energy:
This video made by IC3 describes the connection between climate and renewable energy
Wind and solar power generation is directly affected by weather, which is known to vary considerably over space and time. When planning and operating these renewable systems, there is therefore a large uncertainty in the amount of power that will be generated over future timescales.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv9kUqZTUYI
iv) The uncertainties in climate change scenario:
This movie made by CNRM is an animation introducing the difference between climate and weather and the main sources of uncertainty related to them.
One of the most complicated issues to be understood by stakeholders using climate services is the concept of future climate change scenario uncertainties. Three main causes of uncertainty have been identified in global and regional climate change scenario: (i) climate natural variability, (ii) climate model related uncertainty and (iii) socioeconomic scenario uncertainty.
Link: http://vimeo.com/81493354
v) Cherchez les femmes!
A video made by ENEA focused on the important role had by women in CLIM-RUN project has been realized as an ad hoc initiative to raise women visibility in the project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MKqTVBdc9Q
2. Congress
The lessons learnt in the CLIM-RUN experience will be disseminated in the sessions devoted to Climate services of the forthcoming main congresses such as:
European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014 Vienna, Austria, 27 April – 02 May 2014
Here two contributions about CLIM-RUN major outcomes are planned in the Climate Services session (in collaboration with ECLISE and EUPORIAS projects), organized as partial fulfillment of deliverable 9.4 as a room where gather and present climate services initiatives at International (GFCS; CSP) and European level (EU FP7 projects,…) in the context of EGU where this kind of space was missing.
A protocol for the development of Mediterranean climate services based on the experiences of the CLIM-RUN case studies
Clare Goodess (UEA), Paolo Ruti (ENEA), Nathalie Rousset (PlanBleu), and the CLIM-RUN Climate Expert Team and Stakeholder Expert Team
A new approach in climate modelling strategies to provide climate information based on user needs.
A Dell’Aquila (ENEA), S. Somot , P. Nabat, A. Alias C Dubois (CNRM), E Coppola (UNESCO-ICTP) [Poster Presentation]
“Regional projection of climate impact indices over the Mediterranean region”, Casanueva A., Frías, M.D. Herrera, S., Bedia, J., San-Martín, D., Gutiérrez, J.M. Zaninovic, K. European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014, Vienna (Austria), 27 Apr 2014 - 2 May 2014.
Coastal tourism and climate change in Tunisia»; élaboré par Latifa HENIA, Taher ALOUANE, Zouhaier HLAOUI et acepté pour présentation au forum de European Geosciences Union (EGU) Viennes 2014.
14th EMS Annual Meeting & 10th European Conference on Applied Climatology (ECAC) 06 – 10 October 2014, Prague, Czech Republic
This meeting will be mainly devoted to Climate Services initiatives. In the session about creation of national and regional climate services in Europe through partnerships the following contribution has been submitted
Towards a development of a Mediterranean Climate Services Network: lesson learnt and recommendations from CLIM-RUN project by Alessandro Dell’Aquila(1) Clare Goodess (2), Paolo Ruti (1), and the CLIM-RUN Climate Expert Team and Stakeholder Expert Team
In the session focused on the European collaborative projects towards climate services the following contribution has been submitted
A new approach in climate modelling strategies to provide climate information based on users needs: the CLIM-RUN experience A Dell’Aquila (ENEA), S. Somot , P. Nabat, A. Alias C Dubois (CNRM), E Coppola (UNESCO-ICTP),
The main lessons learnt in CLIM-RUN should be also presented in the forthcoming AGU fall meeting to be held in San Francisco 15-19 Dec 2014.
CLIM-RUN will be presented in the future WCRP Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, Montevideo, Uruguay, 17-21 March 2014 (accepted for oral presentation): Identification and translation of user needs for climate information – comparative experiences in the Caribbean and Mediterranean: Clare Goodess and Ottis Joslyn,
3. Special Issue and other future scientific papers
A Special Issue on “Climate services: underpinning research and social impacts” has been accepted by the Earth Perspectives Journal (Springer, http://www.earth-perspectives.com/).
The need of a special issue would be based on the following reasons:
• World Climate Conference-3, September 2009, organized by WMO, addressed the advancements in seasonal to multi-decadal climate predictions and to spur their applications to decision-making in socio-economic sectors, including food, water, energy, health, tourism and development sectors. WMO started a long process to develop a climate services perspective engaging climate research community and extending to other fields (social science, impacts and adaptation). Climate services involve research activities on the production, translation, transfer, and use of climate knowledge and information in climate-informed decision making and climate-smart policy and planning.
• Since 2009 several international initiatives have been organized. A good example, is the climate services partnership (http://www.climate-services.org/) which has been established in 2011 increasing the link among climate science, social aspects and economic research.
• The European DG research launched a first call on Climate science and Climate services on 2010. Two first EU-FP7 projects have run since 2010: CLIMRUN (www.climrun.eu) and ECLISE (www.eclise-project.eu). These two projects advanced in climate research to develop services in key sectors for Europe: energy, agriculture, water, tourism, coastal protection and other sectors. Moreover, the European initiative for climate service observation and modelling (European climate observation and modelling for services, short ECOMS) was launched November 2012 in Barcelona. This initiative, based on CLIMRUN and ECLISE results, will exploit recent advances in our understanding and ability to forecast climate variability and change. It will also work with stakeholders to identify opportunities to develop new and improved tools to exploit monthly-to-decadal forecasts which now hold the potential to be of great value to a wide range of relevant decision making.
Here, we explain the anticipated contribution of the special issue in advancing understanding in this area:
• Despite its potential value in informing European and international business and adaptation strategy, climate information is currently underexploited. Therefore, access to credible forecast information (seasonal to centennial), supported by informed guidance, could lead to significant advances in society's ability to effectively prepare for, and manage, climate-related risks.
• Increasing the quality, reliability and detail of climate information for societal use in the European and Mediterranean area by activating an effective exchange of information between the science and stakeholder communities, in key economic sectors: methodological aspects, new modeling tools.
• Developing a communication protocol by which climate information is transferred from the researchers to the stakeholders in order to develop suitable adaptation measures. The most innovative aspect in the development of this protocol will be its bottom-up approach, by which stakeholders will be involved in the design of the protocol from its early stages in conjunction and strong communication with the science community and the climate information providers.
• Providing new findings of the relevance of climate information in key sectors (energy, agriculture, water, tourism, coastal protection) and the economic value of climate services.
We identified several papers and authors for possible inclusion in the special issue, with a brief description of each paper.
i. PM Ruti and R van Oss (ENEA-KNMI): “state of the art of climate services at European scale”. This paper will provide an overview of climate services in Europe and their potential link to other regions such as North Africa.
ii. Chris Hewitt (MetOffice) and co-authors: “International perspective of climate services”. This paper will describe international initiatives (i.e. GFCS, CSP and ECOMS) and their potential for new research lines and climate policy at international level.
iii. C Buontempo (MetOffice) and co-authors: “Seasonal-to-decadal climate information and their applications”. The skill of seasonal-to-decadal forecasts will be assessed for key sectors and applications.
iv. Nathalie Rousset (Plan Bleu) and co-authors: “A protocol for Climate Services”. This paper will analyse the framework for developing climate services and the business model behind its development.
v. Christos Giannakopoulos (NOA) and co-authors: “Climate services on the forest fire sector”. Results of forest fire risks for the Mediterranean area will be presented and their link to climate change.
vi. R. Weisse (HZG) and co-authors: “Climate services for marine applications in Europe”. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of improved oceanographic data sets on waves and surges tailored to the need of the local users.
vii. PD Reyes (IC3) and co-authors: “the forecast quality of a multi-model set of monthly forecasts for the wind energy sector”. This paper will discuss the main challenges that both the sector and climate scientists are facing to succeed in the use of this climate information.
viii. C Goodess (CRU) and co-authors: “Identifying and translating stakeholder needs for climate information products”. This paper would address methodological and research aspects related to the development of climate services products and the process for involving stakeholders.
ix. F. Ludwig (WUR), C Donnelly (SMHI) and co-authors: “Water management and climate services at European scale”. Demonstration of climate information service for pan-European water-use sectors that are vulnerable to climate change induced hydrological changes: electricity, agriculture and environment (water quality).
x. G Dubois (TEC) and co-authors: “Tourism and climate services”. An in deep analysis of the Tourism sector in the Mediterranean area and the impact of climate change, considering risks and new developments.
xi. I, Tsanis (UniCrete) and co-authors: “climate services on water management for Crete”. A study on the impact of climate change on availability of fresh water on Crete.
xii. S. Sobolowski (UniBergen): “Precipitation changes and their impact on coastal cities in Norway”. On the impact of changes in intensity, duration and frequency of precipitation events and the implications for infrastructure, e.g. storm drain construction, along the Norwegian coast.
xiii. M. Brunetti (ISAC): “high resolution future climate data and their use for city management and solar-energy generation in Italy”.
xiv. Giannini Giannini V., Bellucci A., Dell'Aquila A., Coppola E., Gualdi S., Girogi F. (in prep.) Climate services: a participatory process to understand stakeholders' needs for integrated coastal zone management.
xv. Sperotto A., Torresan S., Gallina V., Critto A., Furlan E., Marcomini A.: Development of climate services related to pluvial flood impacts under climate change scenarios in the North Adriatic coast”.
Here a possible time-scale in which the special issue could be produced (paper writing, reviewing, submission of final copy to Global Environmental Change) assuming the proposal is accepted.
a. Paper writing, by May-June 2014
b. Reviewing by November 2014
c. Submission of final copy by December 2014 – January 2015
Other future scientific papers under preparation or already submitted are the following:
• Harader et al. (in prep.) Impacts of regional climate model resolution on rainfall extremes over France
• Dubois G., Dubois C. et al. (in prep.) TCI computation from the ENSEMBLES RCM simulations
• Petitta M, Calmanti S, Dell’Aquila A, Dubois C (in prep.) Regional climate models prediction of incoming solar radiation: climate services and users.
• Sevault F., Somot S., Alias A., Dubois C., Lebeaupin-Brossier C., Nabat P., Adloff F., Déqué M. And Decharme B. (submitted) Ocean simulation of the 1980-2012 period for the Mediterranean Sea using a fully-coupled atmosphere-land-hydrology-river-ocean Regional Climate System Model: design and evaluation. Tellus
• Torma et al. (in prep.) Climate change projections over the Med-CORDEX domain from a multiple physics ensemble of RegCM4 simulations.
• Adloff F., Somot S., Sevault F., Déqué M., Herrmann M., Dubois C., Aznar R. Padorno E., Alvarez-Fanjuls E., Jordà G., Gomis D. (in prep.) Sensivity of the Mediterranean Sea to boundary forcings in an ensemble of 21st century climate change scenarios. Clim Dyn
• Ruti P., S. Somot, C. Dubois, S. Calmanti, B. Ahrens, A. Alias, R. Aznar, J. Bartholy, S. Bastin, K. Béranger, J. Brauch, J.-C. Calvet, A. Carillo, B. Decharme, A. Dell’Aquila, V. Djurdjevic, P. Drobinski, A. Elizalde-Arellano, M. Gaertner, P. Galan, C. Gallardo, F. Giorgi, S. Gualdi, A. Harzallah, M. Herrmann, D. Jacob, S. Khodayar, S. Krichak, C. Lebeaupin, B. L’Heveder, L. Li, G. Liguro, P. Lionello, B. Onol, B. Rajkovic, G. Sannino, F. Sevault (2014) MED-CORDEX initiative for Mediterranean Climate studies (submitted to BAMS)
• Nabat P., Somot S., Mallet M., Sevault F., Chiacchio M., Wild M. (in revision) Direct and semi-direct aerosol radiative effect on the Mediterranean climate variability using a coupled Regional Climate System Model. Clim. Dyn.
• Torma, C. and Giorgi F. (2014): Assessing the contribution of different factors in regional climate model projections using the Factor Separation method. Atmosfpheric Science Letters (in press)
• Isigonis P., S. Torresan, A. Sperotto, A. Zabeo and Critto A., Marcomini A. Review of organisations, methods and tools for the provision of relevant climate services for different sectors of society. In P. Farah (Editor) “Sustainable energy and environmental risk analysis: the scientific support to decision making in Europe and Asia”, Under review.
• Casanueva A., Frías M.D. Herrera S., San-Martín D., Zaninovic K. and Gutiérrez J.M. (2014): Statistical downscaling of climate impact indices: Testing a direct approach, Climatic Change, submitted.
• A dissemination paper prepared by Plan Blue on Climate Services for the Mediterranean Region built on the results from the CLIM-RUN project and its recommendation is in writing phase, and will be published in the Plan Bleu and CLIM-RUN web sites
• An article on the “Le climat touristique de la Tunisie et le changement climatique ; produit par Latifa HENIA, Taher ALOUANE, et Zouhaier HLAOUI (du GREVACHOT), est accepté pour la publication dans les actes du colloque de l’Association Internationale de Climatologie (AIC), Dijon, France, juillet 2014”
4. The Mediterranean Network
CLIMRUN results will be an important legacy for the development of a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectorial network in the Mediterranean. The partnership and the work developed by CLIMRUN will be beneficial for the development of a Regional Framework for Climate Services which is intended to enable the establishment of regional mechanisms for successful cooperation between all Mediterranean countries, in dealing with adaptation to climate change impacts in several sectors (coastal, tourism, energy etc) and in providing actionable climate information for present climate and near future (seasonal to decadal time frame). Its strategic objective is to ensure the Mediterranean countries build their capacity to be resilient to the risks and impacts of climate variability and of climate change through implementing adaptation measures; improving decision making and good governance, improving understanding of climate change and their effects; education and awareness; and developing and strengthening partnership and cooperation.
This Regional Framework can integrate several ongoing activities developed by WMO (the GFCS), UNEP/MAP, and the European Commission. WMO is fostering the GFCS with three main levels: global, regional and national. A priority will be to work at regional scale in order to tailored global products and to trigger national initiatives. The regional outlook forum could be an essential tool, but it would be important to cover all the Mediterranean basin in order to bridge experiences between European and African countries. UNEP/MAP initiative to develop a Mediterranean framework for climate adaptation is another key ingredient. Both initiatives should collaborate in order to strengthen the adaptation capacity and the preparedness of the Mediterranean society to climate variability and extremes. EU could play a relevant role in order to build an adaptive capacity: establishing systems for data collection and monitoring, evaluation processes, awareness-rising initiatives, and policies to encourage, support and require responsible persons to incorporate climate change risks and adaptation into decision-making.
The Copernicus Climate Change service and the JPI-climate responds for Europe to environmental and societal challenges associated with human-induced climate changes. These two initiatives can contribute to the development of a regional framework and they could support the integration action in terms of resources and of scientific expertise. Moreover, the establishment of the European Climate Services Partnership could also benefit of the CLIMRUN experience.
These actions can concentrate first on the following priorities:
• involving met-services, but also educational and research institutions in a multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholders approach;
• developing a strategy for data monitoring and access for several climate user-oriented parameters (rainfall, radiation, …);
• developing targeted training activities for the intermediate tier which will trigger and maintain most of the hand-user services in the Mediterranean; most of weather services are driven by the production of forecasts, while the climate services define operational side starting from the users point of view. So, we need to foster the layer which is client specific.
All CLIMRUN partners are involved in these international initiatives and they will ensure the exploitation of its fundamental results
List of Websites:
www.climrun.eu
CLIM-RUN Project aimed at developing a protocol for applying new methodologies and improved modeling and downscaling tools for the provision of adequate climate information at regional to local scale that is relevant to and usable by different sectors of society (policymakers, industry, cities, etc.).
Differently from current approaches, CLIM-RUN has developed a bottom-up protocol directly involving stakeholders early in the process with the aim of identifying well defined needs at the regional to local scale. The improved modeling and downscaling tools have been used to optimally respond to these specific needs. The protocol has been assessed by application to relevant case studies involving interdependent sectors, primarily tourism and energy, and natural hazards (wild fires) for representative target areas (mountainous regions, coastal areas, islands). CLIM-RUN has also provided the seed for the formation of a Mediterranean basin-side climate service network.
Objectives
The general objective of CLIM-RUN project has been to contribute to the creation in the Mediterranean area of a Climate Services Network, in line with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on-going process, initiated with the creation of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) in 2009, and to what has already been set up in Northern European countries (e.g. the United Kingdom and Germany). In fact, the Mediterranean area is a recognized climate change hot spot, i.e. a region particularly sensitive and vulnerable to global warming. CLIM-RUN has provided an important instrument for the development of a Mediterranean-wide network.
To reach this aim, CLIM-RUN has pursued the following objectives:
• Increasing the quality, reliability and detail of climate information for societal use in the Mediterranean area by activating an effective exchange of information between the science and stakeholder communities, in key economic sectors: energy and tourism. These two sectors have been complemented by a cross-cutting issue, forest fires, whose occurrence in the Mediterranean concerns several business activities and by integrated case studies in which multiple sectors are involved.
• Developing a communication protocol by which climate information has been transferred from the researchers to the stakeholders in order to develop suitable adaptation measures. The most innovative aspect in the development of this protocol has been its bottom-up approach, by which stakeholders have been involved in the design of the protocol from its early stages in conjunction and strong communication with the science community and the climate information providers (e.g. national and international Meteorological Centers).
• Developing and providing training for a new research expertise lying at the interface between the science results and the stakeholder application.
• Developing a web-portal for: Integrating the different levels of climate and sector-relevant information and tailoring the dissemination for different stakeholders (policy makers,business stakeholders etc.); disseminating on-line surveys to increase the number of the stakeholders outside of the case-study level; optimizing communication within and outside the project (e.g. web communication tools, blogs, social-networks) iv) supporting e-learning tools (training on-line, interactive material etc.).
Project Context and Objectives:
1. INTRODUCTION
A better application of climatic information throughout several productive sectors need to be facilitated. The simplified scheme, where the data-providers (Met-services, climatic centers, etc) develop tailored products and dialogue directly with a large number of different type of users, does not fit with a large diffusion of climate information into several societal niches. A more complex framework is needed, considering an intermediate layer between data-providers and users, able to interact with both, to translate information and languages, to identify requirements and to trigger new perspectives.
The Clim-Run project aimed at developing a protocol for applying new methodologies and improved modeling and downscaling tools for the provision of adequate climate information at regional to local scale that is relevant to and usable by different sectors of society (policymakers, industry, cities, etc).
In this context, the main objective of the Clim-Run protocol is to support the envisioned bottom-up approach for the development of climate services and the transfer of improved climate information to stakeholders. More precisely, the protocol is intended to support this bottom-up approach at two main levels:
• the first aim of the protocol is to propose some methods and tools to be used to involve and communicate with stakeholders at the Clim-Run project level.
• the second aim of the protocol is to propose a business model for the development of climate services at the Mediterranean level, based on the results of the bottom-up approach of the project.
These two elements have been widely detailed in D1.1. Here, we would like to discuss the recommendations for the development of a Mediterranean wide climate service network, and how the Clim-Run experience can provide some key elements.
2. WHY DO WE NEED A MEDITERRANEAN CONTEXT
The Mediterranean region has been assessed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as one of the most vulnerable region to the impacts of climate change, particularly its southern and south-eastern parts and a lot of material is available in the Fourth Assessment Report, and all these results have been confirmed by the Fifth Assessment Report.
Main impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean coastal and marine zones are related to the consequences of changes in the meteorological conditions, mainly temperature, precipitation patterns, and extreme events, and changes at sea, temperature, acidification and sea level rise.
Profound changes may occur at the level of ecosystems and their richness in terms of biodiversity. The gradual increase of terrestrial and marine temperatures will cause the modification of natural habitats, which in the Mediterranean are already subject to intense pressures (pollution, over fishing, habitat degradation, invasive species). Equilibrium conditions of ecosystems will be disrupted and there are many uncertainties about the way in which different species will be able to adapt or otherwise to these changes – their pace of evolution being indeed slower than that of the expected climate changes. A massive loss of biodiversity, in addition to that already projected as a result of direct human pressures, is possible during the 21st century, with a drastic reduction in associated ecosystem services (supply of fresh water, productive soil conservation, resistance to invasive pests, pollination of plants, reproduction of fish resources, moderation of coastal erosion, climat regulation...). Ecosystems on land will also be affected by climate change in addition to pressures from human activity. One of the domains where increased risks are already felt is the occurrence of forest fires.
The expected rise in sea level will generate submersion of low coastal areas and the intrusion of marine water into aquifers will cause problems of groundwater salinisation. Furthermore, growing littoralisation of activities and settlements has led to the proliferation of coastal developments, most of which continue to have catastrophic effects in terms of coastal erosion.
Changes in precipitation and evapo-transpiration patterns will affect run-off, river flow and ground water, therefore the availability of freshwater. Climate change will tend to increase the differences of water availability which already exist between the North and South shores of the Mediterranean. A concerted adaptation strategy for water resources is certainly one of the most crucial needs for Mediterranean countries.
Tourism may directly suffer from problems of temperature increase, water supply scarcity, coastal erosion, changes in the marine environment, reduced marine water quality, and possible restrictions or new regulations on coastal infrastructures. Urban areas are particularly sensitive to heat waves, water scarcity, extreme events, and coastal cities may in addition be affected by sea level rise. Energy services and resources will be increasingly affected by climate change, changing trends, increasing variability, greater extremes, and the availability of water.
3. A REGIONAL MEDITERRANEAN FRAMEWORK FOR CLIMATE SERVICES
The Regional Framework for Climate Services is intended to enable the establishment of regional mechanisms for successful cooperation between all Mediterranean countries, in dealing with adaptation to climate change impacts in several sectors (coastal, tourism, energy etc) and in providing actionable climate information for present climate and near future (seasonal to decadal time frame). Its strategic objective is to ensure the Mediterranean countries build their capacity to be resilient to the risks and impacts of climate variability and of climate change through implementing adaptation measures; improving decision making and good governance, improving understanding of climate change and their effects; education and awareness; and developing and strengthening partnership and cooperation.
The Regional Framework for Climate Services can guide countries to improve and share understanding of climate change impacts, particularly in coastal and marine areas of the region. It will stimulate national capacity building and awareness raising by reviewing and revising policies to incorporate climate change risks in sectorial policies, plans and programmes, improving awareness and mobilization among key stakeholders. In addition, the Framework will help establish a regional system of exchange of information and best practices on adaptation to climate change impacts in key thematic areas of Mediterranean interest, such as freshwater resources, energy, urban areas, tourism, coastal agriculture and fisheries. It will, also, assist establishing partnerships and cooperation between the countries in the Mediterranean and with other regions.
This Regional Framework can integrate several ongoing activities developed by WMO (the GFCS), UNEP/MAP, and the European Commission. It should indicate long term goals, to be further developed in objectives that have to be achieved in the mid-term period (8-10 years), and relevant type of activities at regional and national levels for achieving the established objectives.
4. WORKING GROUP OBJECTIVES
4.1.WP1 – Climate services analysis and support.
The overall main objectives of WP1 are:
- To elaborate the concept of climate information in the context of climate services and design a bottom-up protocol for identifying and producing relevant climate information for stakeholder use.
- To develop a web-portal as a main tool for communication and interaction; and contribute to the identification of the relevant climate services for the case studies, and the advancement of the science underpinning the delivery of climate information.
4.2.WP2: New climate modelling and analysis tools
The main initial objectives of WP2 were :
2.1 Analysis and exploitation of results from already existing projects (ENSEMBLES, CIRCE, CECILIA, ACQWA, CMIP5, COMBINE, CORDEX) to deliver climate information at regional to local scales (from decadal to multidecadal) as required by the stakeholder community. Development of targeted climate analysis tools for the case studies.
2.2 Evaluation of the uncertainty for different spatial and temporal scales in relation to the critical impact indicators identified in WP1 and to the stakeholders requirements for the case studies (WP4 and related Wps). The uncertainty analysis will be put in the context of the level of “certainty” required for the specific case studies application.
2.3 Development of new modeling tools for producing targeted local scale climate information for use in the case studies.
2.4 Provision of targeted climate information at the regional to local scale based on the new modeling tools and on the requirements of the case studies.
Contrary to most of the previous projects in which the climate community was involved, the framework of the CLIM-RUN project was clearly bottom-up and not top-down. It was anticipated and accepted that this will modified the initial WP2 work plan. Indeed the scientific priorities and the dedicated man power inside the initially-defined WP2 tasks were adapted during the course of the project following the stakeholder demands and feedbacks in order to produce the requested new climate information.
In addition, the CLIM-RUN bottom-up approach and the related continuous learning process led the WP2 partners to re-think the classification of the main roles of WP2 in CLIM-RUN or more generally of the main roles of the climate research community in the climate service protocol.
4.3.WP3: Observational support and downscaling methods
Main Objectives
Collection, processing and documentation of observational, modeling and sector relevant climate data to support customized products, to assess new modeling tools and to statistically downscale climate information to the local scale.
Specific objectives
- Gather observational, model and sector relevant data (environmental parameters directly related to the sector under discussion) to support the case studies analysis and to assess new modeling tools.
- Produce the parameters and indicators directly relevant to the key sector and target locations (case studies) providing a transfer function which analytically links the stakeholder parameters to the climate variables.
- Establish a Mediterranean data repository for scientific, educational and open public use composed of climate observations (atmosphere and ocean), model results and sector relevant data and indices/indicators together with user guidance, documentation and visualization tools (developed in collaboration with WP1).
- Improve, implement and if necessary develop statistical downscaling methods to obtain climate information at local scale for the case studies.
- Provide a user-friendly downscaling portal adapted to the sectors needs thus connecting data producers /owners with end-users.
4.4. WP4 Climate services pilot case studies.
The overall objectives of WP4 are:
• To design and implement a set of pilot case studies providing a real-world context for bringing together experts on the demand and supply side of climate services
• To implement and refine the CLIM-RUN protocol strategy
Major progress towards achieving these objectives has been made through co-ordination of planning for the nine CLIM-RUN workshops which were held during the CLIMRUN project, together with various renewable energy events which were used by WP7 as opportunities for stakeholder interaction. The Climate Expert Team (CET) and Stakeholder Expert Team (SET) have played a major role in these workshops and events, as they did for the first round workshops, as well as in developing the product information sheets produced for each case study. WP4 proposed the format and content of these information sheets, and the WP4 leader has been heavily involved in reviewing them.
In summary, WP4 has played a major role in the successful implementation of the last three of the five CLIM-RUN key stages (previously identified by WP4):
• Iterative consultation and collaboration (see D4.3)
• Consolidation and collective review and assessment (see D4.3 and D4.4)
• Going forward: synthesis and recommendations (see D4.4 and Section 3 of D1.1)
During the reporting period, work has also been completed on the economic and impacts assessment (D4.5). In particular, a review has been undertaken of impact assessment methodologies and methods for assessing the economic value of climate services. In addition, three case study assessments have been completed focusing on: Mediterranean tourism flows; the cost of wild fires in Greece and Spain; and, changes in energy demand for heating and cooling in Mediterranean countries.
4.5.WP5 Tourism case studies.
The WP5 focuses on the analysis of the climate information required for tourism management and adaptation in a context of climate variability and change in the northern, southern and eastern Mediterranean. This is explored through case studies in Savoie-France, Tunisia, Cyprus and Croatia (the latest being originally attached to WP8).
4.6.WP6 Wild fires case studies
The overall objectives of WP6 are:
This case study focuses on the analysis of the climate information required in areas where forest fires represent a major hazard through organization of interaction strategies (mainly workshops) with relevant stakeholders.
The overall main objectives of WP6 are:
• The analysis of the climate information required in areas where forest fires represent a major hazard.
• The evaluation of future fire risk in the Mediterranean and in specific target regions for the coming 10 to 50 years.
• To illustrate how climate information can play an important role in the identification of vulnerable regions and in the management of existing and new forests.
4.7.WP7 Energy Case Studies.
Main Objectives
This WP focused on the analysis of the climate information required in areas where renewable energy, in particular solar, wind and hydro power plants, are rapidly developing. The work has been carried out in the context where mitigation of anthropogenic climate change is a major objective of the energy sector in the coming 10 to 50 years. The WP aimed at illustrating how climate information can play an important role in terms of location and management of new plants and, in the case of hydropower, multiple use of existing plants. The regions of interest in this case study were Spain, Morocco and Cyprus.
4.8.WP8 Integrated Case Studies.
The main aim of WP8 was to develop a range of climate services (including climate risk and adaptation products) for local stakeholders of the North Adriatic region. The overall activities followed the CLIM-RUN bottom-up approach, in order to involve and elicit stakeholders’ needs and develop products more tailored to their real requests. For this purpose, two relevant case studies were developed within the WP8: 1. the Italian case study, represented by the coastal zone of Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia Regions and considering the impacts caused by extreme climate/weather events (e.g. heavy rainfall, drought, floods), impacts affecting shoreline and marine waters (e.g. storm surge flooding, sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion) and potential impacts affecting agriculture (e.g. effects of drought); 2. the Croatian case study, which includes the whole country and analyzes especially the energy sector (e.g. hydro, solar, wind) and tourism, focusing on the application of the Tourism Comfort Index (TCI) .
Teams of different researchers were involved in the process of development of climate services, including the Stakeholder Expert Team (SET), applying the overall participative process; the Climate Expert Team (CET), providing information about climate variations, trends and extremes by means of tailored climate products. Moreover, for the specific purposes of the Italian case study, a Risk Expert Team (RET) was set-up, producing information about the potential consequences of climate change on selected natural and human coastal systems (i.e. climate risk and adaptation services).
As summarized below, during the reporting period, work has focused on the development of the second round of workshops, on the refinement of final climate and risk services and on the development of cross-cutting conclusions for the case study.
4.9.WP9 Training and dissemination of final results.
The main initial objectives of WP9 were:
Implement a training activity program designed to develop a new professional expertise lying at the interface between climate science and stakeholder application. Present and disseminate final results of the project.
Specific objectives were:
9.1 Training. Training and capacity building is an important component of the project. It has been have the role of developing a new generation of professional expertise lying at the interface between climate science and stakeholder application. This has been accomplished through the organization of training workshops and e-learning activities.
9.2. Dissemination of final results of the project. Presentation and dissemination of the final results of the project occur through the organization of a high visibility workshop and through the web portal developed in WP1. The final workshop co-organized with ECLISE-EU FP7 presented the identification of new climate application tools and research, the outcomes from the interactions between climate integrated research and service communities, and the analysis of the impacts of climate information on environment and society.
Project Results:
SUMMARY
A main achievement has been the CLIM-RUN Protocol based on the experience acquainted by Case Study WPs (WP5-8), as well as by WP4, to define the iterative process regarding the development of tailored climate information and products, but also to envision a business model for the development of a regional climate service based on the results of the bottom-up approach of the project.
A detailed methodology was developed (WP4) for the CLIM-RUN case studies (WP5-8). While implemented as an end-to-end process over the course of CLIM-RUN, this methodology could be implemented as an iterative, rolling process within an operational climate service.
A “Case Studies Portal” has been finalized to provide a quick access to all the main dissemination products of the project. The Case Studies Portal offers a visual approach of available information making it easy accessible to stakeholders, scientists and policymakers.
A review of potential impacts of climate variability and change at the case study level has been performed at the case study level, accordingly to available information and stakeholder needs. The indicator choice has been made with the aim of improving the scientist knowledge but also to be usable to stakeholders to implement adaptation measures and strategies at their decision-making level.
Finally, a set of recommendations and best-practices, based on the bottom-up experience of CLIM-RUN, has been proposed to support the European Commission and the WMO initiatives towards the development and the implementation of effective climate services in the Mediterranean region. Some of them have already been shared with positive results with international and/or regional stakeholders.
Here a summary of the main specific achievements of CLIMRUN:
• The use of new climate variables (rarely analysed in other projects) and of new dedicated sectoral indices was driven by the case study WPs following stakeholder requests. It was well dealt with by WP2 partners in order to provide very original new climate information
• The development of new climate modelling tools based on the “translation” of the stakeholder requests was a successful step for 3 members of WP2 (ENEA, UNESCO-ICTP, CNRM) and allows, despite some delays, to deliver very original new climate information. It also opens new possibilities for future climate services
• Several ‘transfer functions’ within the CLIMRUN project have been applied to several economic sectors. Here ‘transfer function’ refers to functions, mathematical equations or relations that link pure meteorological and climatic variables with impacts on activity sectors. In Deliverable 3.4 a fire weather index (FWI) was used as transfer function for fire risk and physiological equivalent temperature (PET) as transfer function for apparent temperature. Additionally, the concept of heating and cooling degree days has been used as transfer function for energy demand. Finally, transfer functions for tourism have been used, specifically the TCI, BCI and Humidex indices.
• A statistical downscaling portal was developed (https://www.meteo.unican.es/downscaling/climrun and delivered by the UC partner to connect data producers with end-users in order to satisfy the general public and stakeholders' requirements. Several statistical downscaling methodologies were implemented in this portal and this tool has been considered in Deliverable 3.5 to analyze the performance of the statistical downscaling methods for non-standard parameters.
• In Deliverable 3.6 the CLIM-RUN Data Portal was developed (http://climrun.cyi.ac.cy/) serving both climate specialists and stakeholders and the general public via the following features: i) The LAS server, which provides regional and global, gridded climate data from observations and model output, plus visualization and basic statistical analysis tools; ii) user-friendly platform to access climate data for various of the case study sites in tabular and graphical form, as well as option for direct downloading of the raw data (with permissions depending on the data source/owner).
• Since the CLIMRUN project was designed to be a bottom-up approach all the training activities were planned according with this structure. For example the second training workshop was shaped around the idea of how a stakeholder can learn to use climate services and how a climate scientist can learn to produce suitable research products for climate services. The workshop provided an interdisciplinary arena were the two community of stakeholders and climate scientists could interact and work together on, for example, the development plan of a city that could take into account possible actions needed for climate change adaptation.
• On the same line has been organized the dissemination of scientific results of the project in international meeting like for example European Geosciences Union (EGU) and European Meteorological Society (EMS) annual general assemblies. During these events meeting with stakeholders were organized too, to present to a wider audience the Global Framework of Climate Services (GFCS)
WP's ACHIEVEMENTS
1.1.WP1 – Climate services analysis and support.
1.1.1.Achievements
A relevant achievement has been the CLIM-RUN Protocol based on the experience acquainted by Case Study WPs (WP5-8), as well as by WP4, to define the iterative process regarding the development of tailored climate information and products, but also to envision a business model for the development of a regional climate service based on the results of the bottom-up approach of the project.
A “Case Studies Portal” has been and provided a quick access to all the main dissemination products of the project. The Case Studies Portal offers a visual approach of available information making it easy accessible to stakeholders, scientists and policymakers.
A review of potential impacts of climate variability and change at the case study level has been performed at the case study level, accordingly to available information and stakeholder needs. The indicator choice has been made with the aim of improving the scientist knowledge but also to be usable to stakeholders to implement adaptation measures and strategies at their decision-making level.
Finally, a set of recommendations and best-practices, based on the bottom-up experience of CLIM-RUN, has been proposed to support the European Commission and the WMO initiatives towards the development and the implementation of effective climate services in the Mediterranean region. Some of them have already been shared with positive results with international and/or regional stakeholders.
1.2.WP2: New climate modelling and analysis tools
1.2.1.Achievements
Overall all the WP2 initial objectives and WP2 tasks described above have been achieved and all the milestones and deliverables were completed despite some delays. Those delays are mostly explained by late arrival of some climate data (CMIP5 was late with respect to initial schedule leading also to late arrival of related CORDEX data) and by delays in the synthesis of the stakeholder needs for some case study. On the whole, those delays did not impact the production of the new climate information by WP2 and their transfer and use by the other WPs.
Contrary to most of the previous projects in which the climate community was involved, the framework of the CLIM-RUN project was clearly bottom-up and not top-down. It was anticipated and accepted that this will modified the initial WP2 work plan. Indeed the scientific priorities and the dedicated man power inside the initially-defined WP2 tasks were adapted during the course of the project following the stakeholder demands and feedbacks in order to produce the requested new climate information.
In addition, the CLIM-RUN bottom-up approach and the related continuous learning process led the WP2 partners to re-think the classification of the main roles of WP2 in CLIM-RUN or more generally of the main roles of the climate research community in the climate service protocol. We conclude that WP2 activities can be mainly summarized by four main tasks instead of the initial three and with slightly different meaning and naming. Note however that the new four tasks fully cover the initially-planed three tasks. We thought that those new tasks described below are representative of what could be the real tasks of European climate research bodies (the so-called climate tier of the CLIM-RUN protocol and CLIM-RUN recommendations, see Del 1.1 and 1.4) in order to efficiently contribute to the developing Mediterranean climate service. Those four main tasks are:
Task A: Sharing climate expertise (not planned in the initial tasks)
Task B: Certification of climate “tools” (models/databases/information/products) (partly included in Task 2.1)
Task C: Provision of tailored climate products (included in Task2.1 and Task 2.3)
Task D: Performing new research developments to deliver new climate services (included in Task 2.2)
Before a detailed description of the work during the second half of the project, here is a summarize of the main achievements done by WP2:
• Despite some delays, all the WP2 milestones and deliverables of the second reporting period (M19-M36) have been achieved and delivered to the project web site (MS6 leaded by UNESCO-ICTP, MS7 by ENEA, D2.2 by IC3, D2.3 by UNESCO-ICTP, D2.4 by CMCC; D2.5 by USMD and IC3, D2.6 by ENEA).
• WP2 members considered as Climate Experts were very active in the CET-SET pairs to prepare and drive the production of new climate information leading to a large number of information sheets
• The analysis of already existing climate databases to produce new tailored climate information in respond to user needs worked very well for all the temporal scales requested: past climate variability (all WP2 partners), seasonal forecast (IC3, CMCC), decadal forecast (IC3, USMD, CMCC) and future regional projections (ENEA, UNESCO-ICTP, CNRM)
• The use of new climate variables (rarely analysed in other projects) and of new dedicated sectoral indices was driven by the case study WPs following stakeholder requests. It was well dealt with by WP2 partners in order to provide very original new climate information
• The development of new climate modelling tools based on the “translation” of the stakeholder requests was a successful step for 3 members of WP2 (ENEA, UNESCO-ICTP, CNRM) and allows, despite some delays, to deliver very original new climate information. It also opens new possibilities for future climate services
• WP2 partners were very active in the training and communication activities in WP9 mainly as teachers of the two Summer schools and as climate advisors for the communication activities.
• WP2 partners also strongly participate in the final part of the project to discuss and set up the final CLIM-RUN protocol and to deliver the final CLIM-RUN recommendations using the experience gained during the project.
1.3.WP3: Observational support and downscaling methods
1.3.1.Achievements
The term ‘transfer function’ within the CLIMRUN project refers to functions, mathematical equations or relations that link pure meteorological and climatic variables with impacts on activity sectors. As such they can be seen as simple impact models for several economic sectors and activities such as tourism, human comfort, fire risk and energy demand. Other definitions for transfer functions, for example in relation to proxy reconstructions and downscaling, also exist, but in CLIMRUN the above definition has been used to describe the use of transfer functions. In Deliverable 3.4 a fire weather index (FWI) was used as transfer function for fire risk and physiological equivalent temperature (PET) as transfer function for apparent temperature. Additionally, the concept of heating and cooling degree days has been used as transfer function for energy demand. Finally, transfer functions for tourism have been used, specifically the TCI, BCI and Humidex indices. Deliverable 3.4 (related to Task 3.4 -downscaling methods and portal) describes in detail the theory and the physics behind the transfer functions used for tourism, human comfort, fire risk and energy demand and includes an application of these transfer functions for the case study of Cyprus. Daily meteorological output from several regional climate models for the recent past (1061-1990) has been used to derive the above mentioned indices over Cyprus and produce maps to demonstrate the application of transfer functions for the respective sectors.
In a previous Deliverable (3.2) a statistical downscaling portal was developed (https://www.meteo.unican.es/downscaling/climrun and delivered by the UC partner to connect data producers with end-users in order to satisfy the general public and stakeholders' requirements. Several statistical downscaling methodologies were implemented in this portal and this tool has been considered in Deliverable 3.5 to analyze the performance of the statistical downscaling methods for non-standard parameters. One advantage of the statistical downscaling versus the dynamical approach is that the former offers the possibility to produce local information of non-climatic (or, non-standard) variables such as wind power, river flows or indices which are computed from several meteorological variables. In the last group we considered here two indices of interest for the CLIM-RUN project: the Fire Weather Index (FWI) and the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET). These are commonly considered by stakeholders from the wild fires and tourism sectors respectively and in particular, they are of great interest for stakeholders working in representative target areas defined in CLIM-RUN: Spain and Greece for wild fires and Croatia for tourism. The suitability of performing statistical downscaling to these two non-standard parameters was explored in Deliverable 3.5. Both direct and component downscaling approaches were tested using the UC statistical downscaling portal (thus representing work of ask 3.4 - downscaling methods and portal). According to the two experiments applied in this study for the FWI and the PET over different regions, results from both methodologies are quite similar. Therefore, for those impact studies where the intermediate climate information is not relevant, it is possible to apply the direct downscaling in order to provide local scale information for a particular climate related index.
In Deliverable 3.6 the CLIM-RUN Data Portal was developed (http://climrun.cyi.ac.cy/) serving both climate specialists and stakeholders and the general public via the following features: i) The LAS server, which provides regional and global, gridded climate data from observations and model output, plus visualization and basic statistical analysis tools; ii) user-friendly platform to access climate data for various of the case study sites in tabular and graphical form, as well as option for direct downloading of the raw data (with permissions depending on the data source/owner). Work in this deliverable satisfied Task 3.3 (establishing a Mediterranean data repository).
Deliverable 3.7 pertains to downscaling of percentiles and extremes events indicators and contributes to Tasks 3.2 and 3.4. It essentially provides an overview of the more specific and focused work that has been undertaken by five partners. In the majority of cases, this work has led to the production of specific climate products and related CLIM-RUN information sheets.Particurly work in this deliverable includes: i) Mediterranean analysis of temperature and precipitation extremes (case study results for Greece, north Adriatic and Cyprus); ii) Temperature and precipitation extremes in a multiple physics ensemble of RegCM4 (reliability, skill, past and future changes); iii) Extreme precipitation in CNRM Med-CORDEX simulations; iv) Statistical and dynamical downscaling of extreme temperature over Spain; v) Wind extremes
1.4.WP4 Significant results (highlights)
During the last 18 months (as during the first 18 months of CLIM-RUN) WP4 has provided co-ordination and practical support for implementation of the case studies (WP5 to WP8).
A detailed methodology was developed for the last three of the five CLIM-RUN key stages. These key stages have given structure to the case studies and have provided a sense of progression. While implemented as an end-to-end process over the course of CLIM-RUN, they could be implemented as an iterative, rolling process within an operational climate service. While WP4 has provided this common overall structure and co-ordination, the key stages and methods were also designed to permit flexibility and tailoring to the individual CLIM-RUN case studies.
The perception and data needs questionnaire developed by WP4 during the first reporting period provided a principal means for identifying user needs and understanding their decision making contexts. Information from this questionnaire and from discussions and interviews with stakeholders was used during the second reporting period to translate these needs into specific products. The utility of the questionnaire has been further reviewed during the current reporting period, by both the case-study teams and WP4. It was concluded that the information sought through the questionnaire was desirable for project partners (both climate and stakeholder experts) to have and all the questions are considered to have potential utility. Using the questions as the basis for semi-structured interviews is, however, generally seen as the optimal method for seeking the information though is very time consuming compared with paper or online surveys.
WP4 provided planning support and co-ordination for the second round of CLIM-RUN workshops which were held between May and October 2013. Direct contact and discussion took place with around 160 stakeholders participating in the nine CLIM-RUN workshops together with four non-CLIM-RUN events used by WP7 as opportunities for stakeholder interaction.
The main role for WP4 following these workshops was to produce a synthesis report covering both workshop preparations and the outcomes (D4.3) and another on the common messages emerging from the case studies (D4.4). The common messages have emerged despite the recognition that every case study and every stakeholder and user or potential user is different. Some of the common messages may perhaps seem rather obvious, but they are based on the real-world experiences of the CLIM-RUN case studies and the detailed supporting evidence presented in the individual case-study reports and deliverables.
WP4 has also illustrated the potential of economic analysis both in the context of case-study impacts (with worked examples focused on Mediterranean tourism flows, the cost of wild fires in Greece and Spain, and energy demand for heating and cooling in case-study countries) and for evaluating the benefits of climate services.
There has been a great deal of interest in the CLIM-RUN experiences and methodologies from other projects and initiatives such as ECLISE, EUPORIAS, JPI-Climate and the Climate Services Partnership. The WP4 leader has spoken about CLIM-RUN at a number of these events, as well as at the EGU and EMS/ECAM assemblies and workshops in Latin America and the Caribbean.
While WP4 is considered to have made significant progress, some practical and organisational aspects hindered progress at times. Due to the project timescale, it was difficult for both WP4 and the case-study partners to be ‘learning as we went’. Similarly it was difficult not to have had all the project infrastructure (e.g. the case-study and data portals) in place from the outset. It would have been good to have had more time for discussion between the partners on the products (i.e. the information sheets) and also on standards in terms of presentation and, in particular, the use of multi-model ensembles and uncertainty.
In addition, a number of gaps were identified, which can be considered as part of the significant results since they inform the future development of climate services. Activities such as the development and analysis of questionnaires and surveys would benefit from social science expertise. Communication and visualisation experts are needed to help improve communication and products such as information sheets. More general background information and guidance on issues such as model reliability and uncertainty is needed, as well as explaining the distinctions between seasonal forecasts, decadal predictions and climate change projections. And more capacity building and internal discussion is needed between climate and stakeholder experts (as well as between climate service providers and users).
Finally, from the WP4 perspective it is concluded that the CLIM-RUN bottom-up approach engaging stakeholders in the case studies (through WP5 to WP8) combined with top-down scientific expertise and responsibility (provided by WP2 and WP3) represents an appropriate model for Mediterranean climate services.
1.5.WP5 Tourism case studies.
1.5.1.Significant results (highlights)
The significant results of the last 18 months of the project concerning WP5 can be summarized as follows.
Following the first workshops, the collaboration between SET and CET in answering user needs can be considered successful for a first experiment. Through continuous and effective interaction, it was possible to specify and design a set of climate products for each case study. During this stage, although some interactions with stakeholders have been made (for a few products), it was difficult to maintain an iterative process with them. Several factors helped to explain this result: the excessive need of products specification, the technical nature of the discussions, the gap between research concerns and stakeholder operational concerns, etc. This effective interaction between CET and SET also confirmed the need to involve "intermediaries" (such as impact researchers and boundary workers) to play this role of interface with final end-users. They could collaborate, in one hand, with climatologists to translate the user needs and in other hand, with end-users in order to design more tailored and operational products. This fed the definition of a “three tier” business model (climate tier, stakeholder tier and intermediate tier) for climate services, by WP1 (D1.1).
This collaboration has nevertheless led to the completion of twelve information sheets for the tourism sector in the Mediterranean (common and specific needs). They were discussed and assessed with the stakeholders during the second round of workshops. This second stage allowed to explore in-depth the current demand of climate services in Mediterranean tourism. The current demand has appeared:
- heterogeneous, in obvious relation with the diversity of the tourism sector itself;
- highly concentrated on small geographical areas demanding high resolution products (often unreachable);
- focused on impact more that climate. CLIM-RUN did not include climate change impact modelling. As it was initially envisaged, some of the subjects of the project were a little deceptive for stakeholders;
- focused on the short to mid-term time horizons. Very high demand for seasonal up to decadal forecast. Few direct assets are planned beyond twenty years (if one excludes spatial planning and infrastructures related to tourism).
Two important common field of concern emerged and can also be considered as significant results:
- seasonal forecasts : seasonal temperature not only at destination level but also in the home market, sea surface temperature forecast, indicators for summer season in the mountains areas (rainfall, temperature, extreme events),
- the development of tourism specific indexes, like the Tourism comfort index (TCI).
Finally, tourism could be considered as a good test for the development of a climate services architecture, given:
- its economic importance, especially in the Mediterranean;
- its high dependence on climate parameters;
- the awareness of tourism stakeholders of climate change issues;
- the diversity of climate parameters, spatial domains and time horizons potentially involved.
This capacity is, however, limited by high proportion of SMEs; by the lack of innovation in the sector; by predominant short-term visions and a strong focus on economic concerns and (the current) post-crisis recovery; and by the general lack of public support to the sector, contrary to other economic branches, like agriculture. Therefore, there is an obvious need to associate tourism in future partnerships, particularly in the Mediterranean, but the tourism itself is not likely to take the lead. The sector will be more reactive than proactive.
1.6.WP6 Significant results (highlights)
The highlights of the last 18 months of the project concerning WP6 can be summarized as follows:
• The establishment of FWI critical thresholds for Greece using fire occurrence data obtained by Greek Forest Services’ database. This led to the classification of Greece into three distinct areas of different fire behaviour (the western, the northern and the eastern/southern Greece).
• The study of the sensitivity of the fire weather index regarding mean daily and noon meteorological input values, noon values being the strictly correct input but not always available.
• The identification of adaptation options for the Greek forests against fires based on continuous interaction with local stakeholders.
Following the first workshop, through continuous and effective interaction with stakeholders (with role of the SET member being crucial), we proceeded to the division between them into three main categories, in order to develop and provide them with the most adequate and relative climate information and products. in short, these are: a) Short term fire risk forecast for 3 days to address the needs of short term fire planners b) Long term fire risk and other fire related indices' changes due to climate change (time horizon up to 2050 and up to 2100) to address the needs of long term fire policy makers c) Educational software tool to expand knowledge in fire risk indices in order to address the needs for in-depth training.
In addition, a number of gaps were identified, which can be considered as part of the significant results since they inform the future development of climate services. These gaps concern a further assessment of the fire risk index together with the necessary adjustment (reallocation) of fire risk categories which correspond to local conditions. Furthermore, the future introduction of socioeconomic factors (even in selected local areas, e.g. activity of pastoralists in Crete) that influence ignition of forest fires was considered to be useful and should be included in future research, as stakeholders believe that most fires in Greece start due to human causes in combination with meteorological conditions. Finally, the majority of stakeholders believed that vegetation and land use information should be integrated with meteorological data (FWI), so as to provide a more robust tool, in order to assess fire vulnerability in Greece.
1.7.WP7 Energy Case Studies.
1.7.1.Significant results (highlights)
IC3 (Spanish case study) has carried out the second round of stakeholder workshops where the seasonal forecast products were tested. New, improved forecast graphics have been developed and disseminated to stakeholders via channels of communications tailored specifically to the energy sector. This includes the ARECS web portal and newsletter. ENEA and PIK (Morocco case study) has carried out the second round of stakeholder workshops at the Maghreb Wind Energy Conference, which is the only wind energy industry-focused event in Morocco in 2013 and provided us with the unique opportunity to present and directly discuss three climate information products with Moroccan wind energy stakeholders.
EEWRC (Cyprus case study) organised the second CLIMRUN WP7 workshop "Climate Services for the Energy Sector on Cyprus" following-on to the first one in 2011. To better prepare for the second meeting with stakeholders, we carried out an extensive survey of the Energy Sector in Cyprus. This survey was the basis for the selection of invitees to the workshop and proved most useful to reach the major institutions involved in the Energy Sector in Cyprus.
DHMZ (Croatia case study) co-organised the second round workshop by DHMZ and UNDP Croatia. Local stakeholders were represented from academic, research, business, consultancy and regulator’s organisations and companies. DHMZ have a created an online Wind Atlas, as a basis for wind resource estimation in Croatia.
1.8.WP8 Integrated Case Studies.
1.8.1.Achievements
The past and current climate and climate variability for Croatia were evaluated from the DHMZ observations archive and from regional climate model (RCM) simulations (RegCM and the ENSEMBLES project); future climate projections were derived from RCMs at 35 km and 25 km resolutions. However, because of complex orography, land-sea contrast and well indented coastline of the Croatian Adriatic, further downscaling to a finer resolution may be required. Although climate projections are fairly certain about future temperature increase and despite the growing awareness of its potential effects, it appears that the adaptation to climate change and associated planning in Croatia’s tourism sector is of no major concern. This may be partly due to the fact that so far no adverse signs and effects of climate change are particularly evident in Croatia, i.e. extreme weather and climate events (e.g. extended droughts) in the recent past may still be considered as a part of natural variability. Because of uncertainties both in weather and the Earth climate system, DHMZ forecasts at all time horizons (from short to seasonal) are now mostly based on probabilistic approach. Some energy stakeholders, however, do not consider this as the basis for their operations, but they intend to integrate the probabilistic approach into their energy planning, providing more tangible information on probabilistic forecasts by DHMZ. The consensus among RCMs is that by the mid-21st century climate change for precipitation over the Croatian Adriatic region and its hinterland is generally uncertain.
Based on the key variables and impacts identified by stakeholders through the first workshop and survey (D8.1) and on the feedbacks of the second workshop and questionnaire (D8.2) risk experts developed two main risk products: 1. pluvial flood maps for the Municipality of Venice; 2. sea-level rise inundation risk maps for the overall coast of Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Hazard scenarios were developed for the period 2041-2050 integrating climate information coming from regional climate models with site-specific topographic and permeability information. Moreover, in order to apply the Regional Risk Assessment methodology for climate change impact assessment (D8.2 and D1.3) vulnerability and exposure assessments were performed for different receptors (i.e. urban areas, infrastructures, agricultural, areas, beaches) by means of vulnerability matrixes and indicators related to bio-physical and socio-economic factors. Finally the GIS-based Decision support System for Coastal Climate change impact assessment (DESYCO) was used to construct hazard, vulnerability and risk maps for pluvial flood and sea level rise risks. The Deliverable D8.4 (Cross-cutting conclusions) describes how the overall CLIM-RUN protocol was applied to the North Adriatic case study, highlighting some examples of good practices and general conclusions about the products and some future recommendations for the development of climate services in coastal zones at the Mediterranean scale.
1.9.WP9 Training and dissemination of final results.
1.9.1.Overall objectives and main achievements of the WP
All the WP9 initial objectives and WP9 tasks described above have been achieved and all the milestones and deliverables were completed.
Since the CLIMRUN project was designed to be a bottom-up approach all the training activities were planned according with this structure. For example the second training workshop was shaped around the idea of how a stakeholder can learn to use climate services and how a climate scientist can learn to produce suitable research products for climate services. The workshop provided an interdisciplinary arena were the two community of stakeholders and climate scientists could interact and work together on, for example, the development plan of a city that could take into account possible actions needed for climate change adaptation. The workshop had several stakeholders among the lectures and the students were very interested in learning how the climate information can or cannot be directly usable from the stakeholder community. This was a really innovative way to organize a workshop because it represented a surrogate of the CLIMRUN project in only a week of activity.
On the same line has been organized the dissemination of scientific results of the project in international meeting like for example European Geosciences Union (EGU) and European Meteorological Society (EMS) annual general assemblies. During these events meeting with stakeholders were organized too, to present to a wider audience the Global Framework of Climate Services (GFCS)
Potential Impact:
IMPACTS.
If climate services are to make a major contribution to improving people's adaptive capacity, it is important to identify where such services can add value (in terms of improvements in adaptive capacity and adaptation outcomes); which types of actors are capable of using them (e.g. is the information usable by households and firms autonomously or does it require some sort of collective or governmental action?); and therefore what form such services should take.
Here we would like to provide examples of potential impacts in three main sectors: tourism, wild-fires, energy.
1.Tourism.
In this section we present the effects of climate change on tourist flows in the Mediterranean region during the 21st century, based on the activities of WP5. The study considers an A1B climate scenario and uses the Hamburg Tourism Model (HTM), which includes temperature as one of its determinants of tourist flows.
We consider the effect of climate change on (domestic and international) tourist arrivals at country level for 22 Mediterranean countries. In addition we use regional downscaling to consider the same effects for 16 subnational regions spread across Croatia, France and Tunisia. Results suggest that, other things being equal, by 2100, tourist numbers in most of the downscaled regions may decline by 20-38% compared to a counterfactual without climate change. Compared to other tourism analysis carried out within the CLIM-RUN project this section adds value by considering the interplay between domestic and international tourism.
We mainly consider results of the A1B scenario, i.e. the one with the lowest population growth, but characterized by strong global economic growth. Under such a scenario, the Mediterranean countries are penalized. Here, we concentrate on the CLIM-RUN tourism case studies: Croatia, France, Tunisia and Cyprus. The last two suffer the most severe impacts, being part of (or close to) the world’s most severely impacted regions, such as Africa and the Middle East.
It should be noted that climate change in the countries outside the region (not considered here) could also have an important effect by influencing the destination choice of both domestic and foreign tourists. This would therefore constitute useful additional information for tourist industry stakeholders. Furthermore, the results should be treated with some caution since they show the effect on tourist flows of mean annual temperature per zone (a single annual variable), thereby failing to account for the geographical concentration of tourists within each zone and for changes in seasonal temperatures. Furthermore, temperature is not the only determinant of tourist comfort. For example a composite measure, such as the Tourist Climate Index, would give a broader picture.
Our analysis has highlighted substantial adverse effects of climate change at the case study locations in the long run, which can result in visitor number reductions of 20-38% in most locations, with a minimum of 20% and a maximum of 54% respectively in Bizerte-Beja and Gafsa-Tozeur area (main touristic areas in Tunisia). Given the proportionality between tourist numbers and the revenues of the tourist sector, these impacts are likely to translate into analogous economic losses for the tourist sectors of these areas. Moreover, a quick inspection of data gathered in WP5 shows that international tourism dominates the sector at most locations (with the exception of Savoie, international tourist numbers are usually one order of magnitude larger than domestic ones). Thus the strong negative impact on international tourism would have implications in terms of international currencies revenues and in terms of trade balances of the affected countries.
Although substantial and significant, these results must nevertheless be taken with caution. For one thing, these results are based on the sole effect of climate change on mean annual temperatures. Thus they cannot account for seasonal variability and therefore, the adaptation options provided by the adjustment of the tourist season to the changed climate conditions. Nor they can account for other important characteristics of climate that have a bearing on the comfort of tourists, such as wind and humidity, which are usually considered in approaches based on biometric indexes such as the Tourist Climate Index (Mieczkowski,1985; Amelung & Moreno, 2009), applied also within the Clim-Run project. Nevertheless, they complement the TCI approach nicely, by accounting for the interplay between domestic and international tourism and by providing a comprehensive perspective of global tourist flows and their likely alterations in a warmer world.
2. Wildfires.
Wildfires are an important part of forest ecosystem dynamics in Europe, contributing to forest renewal and insect & disease control (EEA, 2012). However, they can also cause extensive damage including loss of human life, adverse health impacts and damage to property, infrastructure and land-based industries (Bassi & Kettunen, 2008). Climate is an important determinant of long-term wildfire risk, as noted by Flannigan et al. (2000 and 2009). This section provides an overview of the Fire Weather Index (one of the main methodologies used to quantify the intensity of potential forest fires) as well as exploring the potential future burned area and costs in an A1B climate scenario for Greece and Spain.
Fire danger depends on a number of factors that may be fixed or change over time (e.g. weather, fuel type and condition, forest management practices, demographics, etc.) (Merrill and Alexander, 1987). Even if human activity is considered the main cause of forest fires in Europe , the total burned area in Mediterranean Europe, and thus the overall impact of wildfires, varies significantly from year to year especially because of weather conditions (Camia and Amatulli, 2009). Strong winds and high temperatures following prolonged drought periods leads to frequent extreme fire danger conditions in the Mediterranean basin (San-Miguel-Ayanz et al., 2012). These conditions are estimated to worsen in the context of the expected climatic change (Giannakopoulos et al., 2009). These changes in wildfire regimes may have strong impacts on natural resources and ecosystems stability, with consequent direct and indirect economic losses. Making use of meteorological observations of temperature, relatively humidity, wind speed, and 24-hr precipitation measured at noon an index of fire danger is defined in order to predict peak burning conditions expected to occur. The Fire Weather Index (FWI) is a numeric rating of fire intensity, suitable for use as a general index of fire danger (Natural Resources Canada, 2008, Van Wagner, 1987). This index is already widely used in the literature (San Miguel-Ayanz et al. 2003) and it is the fire danger rating system used in the European Forest Fire Information System.
In line with the CLIM-RUN wildfires case study the current assessment focuses on Greece. As a term of comparison the projected evolution of fire weather and the estimated damages is also calculated for Spain. Both are considered among the most vulnerable European countries, in terms of climate change fire weather in the Mediterranean basin.
Using historical data, a statistical relationship can be established between FWI and forest burned area. Once established, this relationship can then be applied to the projected FWI conditions produced by climate change. Some studies have used a statistical technique known as MARS (Multivariate Adaptive Regression Spline) to establish this relationship (Balshi et al., 2009). This technique is seen as advantageous since it is non-parametric in nature, and is therefore able to capture relationships between the dependent variable and multiple explanatory variables that it would be difficult to reveal with other methods.
The observed annual burned area, averaged over the period 1980-2010, shows that Spain has a much larger area affected by wildfires then Greece. Observed Average Annual Burned Area in ha ranges from 47 for Greece to 173 for Spain (the total for the Mediterranean is 471 ha). In terms of burned area the two countries of the current case study make up almost 50% of the wildfire affected area in the EU Mediterranean region (which includes also Italy, Southern France, and Portugal). The results of the linear regression analysis shows the increase in burned area for 2070-2100, compared to baseline conditions, that is expected from climate-induced changes in the FWI. This projected an increase in the index of 7.5 points for Greece and 10.3 for Spain (from a lower starting point). Using linear regression analysis, we estimate this FWI change to lead to an increase in burned area for Greece and Spain of 23% (11,000 ha.) and 67% (117,000 ha) respectively.
The case study has important limitations that have to be made explicit. Firstly, the climate projections come from a single GCM/RCM run and thus do not address uncertainty in the climate scenarios. Secondly, the assessment makes use of a simple linear regression relationship on national-level data. The small number of observations (not spatially disaggregated) and the impossibility of including additional variables in the statistical model, limit considerably the significance of the relationships calculated. For these reasons we underline that the values found are only illustrative and serve as a numerical example of application of the assessment methodology.
In terms of the socioeconomic value of forest fires, we have seen that a comprehensive assessment would take account of restoration cost, loss of life & health, damage to property and livelihoods and the value of ecosystem services (use and non-use). We have also seen that once these factors are taken into account, the total value of a forest fire is highly case specific, meaning that geographical resolution is an important part of any assessment. In the case of Spain, several studies exist that have attempted to quantify some of these effects on a case-specific basis. Barrio et al. (2007) found that in the case of Galicia, the most costly of these impacts was the direct loss of wood and firewood and the cost of the direct emissions of CO2. However, in both Spain and Greece further research is needed to produce cost estimates that can be applied more generally.
3. Energy
In order to assess the economic impacts of climate change and climate change information in CLIMRUN energy case studies have been used Macroeconomic energy models who can provide estimates on the energy demand and on the energy production mix, showing the share of renewable in the total future energy production in any climate change scenarios. The possible models chosen in CLIMRUN has been POLES (Prospective Outlook for the Long term Energy System), a global sectoral simulation model for the development of energy scenarios until 2050. This model version has been used for the purpose of this study to analyse the impact of climate change on domestic consumption in the Mediterranean region. The global model setting includes all policies that are enacted prior to the base year (2010) but proposed policies (e.g. those designed to reach a country's Copenhagen's pledge) are not considered. Six different climate scenarios have been analysed, including a "no climate change scenario" and the climate projections up to 2050 stemming from the five CIRCE models.
In order to account for the impact of climate change on the energy system in POLES, the parameters of the energy system that are affected by climate (e.g. heating and cooling demand) were identified and a mathematical function describing the linkage of these parameters with climatic variables (e.g. heating and cooling degree days) was introduced in the model. The data on cooling and heating degree days have been calculated using daily mean surface temperatures stemming from five distinct climate scenarios (CIRCE) and were introduced in the model in order to study the impact of temperature change on heating and cooling demand in countries of the Mediterranean region.
Compared with a baseline scenario where the climate does not vary, a notable change in the fuel mix can be observed in 2050 versus 1990 in scenarios with high average temperature changes such as scenario of the Max Planck Model for the CIRCE experiments. This change is characterised by an increase in electricity consumption in all scenarios due to the increased use of cooling systems. In this scenario, electricity is about 27% of the energy used for space heating and cooling in the average Southern European household. While biomass remains a competitive fuel in 2050, the share of natural gas for space heating is predicted to experience a slight decrease. This might be perceived as an alleviating effect on European energy security issues related to its heavy dependency on natural gas supplies from Russia (in Central Europe), the Middle East and Northern Africa (in Southern Europe). However, the increasing use of cooling devices, particularly during hot summer months will certainly have stringent impacts on electricity peak demand. This is becoming increasingly problematic in Europe due to high loads, interconnectivity issues, a higher share of renewables in electricity production, water scarcity and prolonged periods of drought that are predicted to become important consequences of climate change, particularly in the Mediterranean region.
Summarizing, the residential energy consumption in the modified POLES model version responds well to the corresponding climate signals, and more importantly, that the latter dominate the demand for both heating and cooling. Overall, the results show that a warming climate will affect cooling demand in southern Europe analysed in CLIMRUN WP7 case study for summer through the increased usage of air conditioning systems while in winter the demand for heating will decrease substantially due to milder outside temperatures. The net result in residential energy consumption due to lesser heating in winter and more cooling in summer appears to be favorable to the household bills in this region since the savings on heating are projected to offset the increasing demand for cooling.
DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS EXPLOITATION
The dissemination and exploitation of CLIMRUN results will be developed through 4 main axes.
1. Web Portals
The CLIM-RUN Web site and Case Studies Portal are located in an ENEA server. This will allow to host them also in the future years, with no restriction and for free.
In order to disseminate to the stakeholders and to public at large the results of the many initiatives and workshops of CLIM-RUN experience the “Case Studies Portal” (link: http://www.climrun.eu/case-studies) was created with the aim to provide a quick access to the most significant results of the different case studies, through a visual and interactive approach.
Differently from the main website, targeted mainly for scientists and experts already aware of the CLIM-RUN project, the Case Studies Portal offers a quick and visual-based access to the available information with the aid of video resources facilitating the use of the main results of the project to a wide audience: stakeholders, researchers, students, etc.
The Portal is made up of a clickable map of Case Studies with link to information sheets, icons for web applications, movies.
The “Information sheet” is a two-page document with the following sections:
i. Target groups;
ii. Relevance to the case-study requirements;
iii. The approach;
iv. The product; and,
v. Making the product usable.
Keywords clearly indicate for which sector and cases studies each product is relevant. Contact emails are given on each information sheet in order to give the possibility to obtain more information or to provide some feedback to the authors. The aim of the Case Studies map is to give in a visual and synthetic way information concerning the considered case study and sectors, about the main results achieved in the course of the project. At the end of the project more than 30 information sheets will be made available on the Case Studies section and in the Products section of CLIM-RUN web site.
Web Applications
The following web applications are the main source of interaction and data visualization of Case Studies Portal:
i)Climate Local Information WebGIS on Tourism Index (TCI), Wind Power (WP) and Fire Weather Index (FWI), made by ENEA, Italy
ii)WebGIS focused on Greece (environmental information and wild fires), made by NOA, Greece
iii)Downscaling Portal for wild fire and tourism studies, made by University of Cantabria, Spain.
Videos and animations
Movies are an effective way to disseminate CLIM-RUN results and main message concerning important concepts about climate services. The Case Studies Portal offers five different videos hosted publicly on Youtube and Vimeos
i)Climate Local Information in the Mediterranean region Responding to User Needs
The video made by ENEA and CMCC offers an introduction to the project through a series of interviews to climate experts of the CLIM-RUN project who present the project while describing the main aims of the project, the participatory process and stakeholders involvement, the climate models and products, and the case studies developed and analyzed within the project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s52cMvCUSlI
ii) Climate services for the North Adriatic coastal zone: A description of the North Adriatic case study
The video is made by CMCC. Climate experts and stakeholders tell the experience of the integrated North Adriatic case study within the CLIM-RUN project while describing the development of climate services tailored to coastal zone managers' needs, an essential requirement to mainstream climate change adaptation in the definition of sustainable plans, policies and programs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDraRXSEZG82
iii) Climate Forecasting for Renewable Energy:
This video made by IC3 describes the connection between climate and renewable energy
Wind and solar power generation is directly affected by weather, which is known to vary considerably over space and time. When planning and operating these renewable systems, there is therefore a large uncertainty in the amount of power that will be generated over future timescales.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv9kUqZTUYI
iv) The uncertainties in climate change scenario:
This movie made by CNRM is an animation introducing the difference between climate and weather and the main sources of uncertainty related to them.
One of the most complicated issues to be understood by stakeholders using climate services is the concept of future climate change scenario uncertainties. Three main causes of uncertainty have been identified in global and regional climate change scenario: (i) climate natural variability, (ii) climate model related uncertainty and (iii) socioeconomic scenario uncertainty.
Link: http://vimeo.com/81493354
v) Cherchez les femmes!
A video made by ENEA focused on the important role had by women in CLIM-RUN project has been realized as an ad hoc initiative to raise women visibility in the project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MKqTVBdc9Q
2. Congress
The lessons learnt in the CLIM-RUN experience will be disseminated in the sessions devoted to Climate services of the forthcoming main congresses such as:
European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014 Vienna, Austria, 27 April – 02 May 2014
Here two contributions about CLIM-RUN major outcomes are planned in the Climate Services session (in collaboration with ECLISE and EUPORIAS projects), organized as partial fulfillment of deliverable 9.4 as a room where gather and present climate services initiatives at International (GFCS; CSP) and European level (EU FP7 projects,…) in the context of EGU where this kind of space was missing.
A protocol for the development of Mediterranean climate services based on the experiences of the CLIM-RUN case studies
Clare Goodess (UEA), Paolo Ruti (ENEA), Nathalie Rousset (PlanBleu), and the CLIM-RUN Climate Expert Team and Stakeholder Expert Team
A new approach in climate modelling strategies to provide climate information based on user needs.
A Dell’Aquila (ENEA), S. Somot , P. Nabat, A. Alias C Dubois (CNRM), E Coppola (UNESCO-ICTP) [Poster Presentation]
“Regional projection of climate impact indices over the Mediterranean region”, Casanueva A., Frías, M.D. Herrera, S., Bedia, J., San-Martín, D., Gutiérrez, J.M. Zaninovic, K. European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014, Vienna (Austria), 27 Apr 2014 - 2 May 2014.
Coastal tourism and climate change in Tunisia»; élaboré par Latifa HENIA, Taher ALOUANE, Zouhaier HLAOUI et acepté pour présentation au forum de European Geosciences Union (EGU) Viennes 2014.
14th EMS Annual Meeting & 10th European Conference on Applied Climatology (ECAC) 06 – 10 October 2014, Prague, Czech Republic
This meeting will be mainly devoted to Climate Services initiatives. In the session about creation of national and regional climate services in Europe through partnerships the following contribution has been submitted
Towards a development of a Mediterranean Climate Services Network: lesson learnt and recommendations from CLIM-RUN project by Alessandro Dell’Aquila(1) Clare Goodess (2), Paolo Ruti (1), and the CLIM-RUN Climate Expert Team and Stakeholder Expert Team
In the session focused on the European collaborative projects towards climate services the following contribution has been submitted
A new approach in climate modelling strategies to provide climate information based on users needs: the CLIM-RUN experience A Dell’Aquila (ENEA), S. Somot , P. Nabat, A. Alias C Dubois (CNRM), E Coppola (UNESCO-ICTP),
The main lessons learnt in CLIM-RUN should be also presented in the forthcoming AGU fall meeting to be held in San Francisco 15-19 Dec 2014.
CLIM-RUN will be presented in the future WCRP Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, Montevideo, Uruguay, 17-21 March 2014 (accepted for oral presentation): Identification and translation of user needs for climate information – comparative experiences in the Caribbean and Mediterranean: Clare Goodess and Ottis Joslyn,
3. Special Issue and other future scientific papers
A Special Issue on “Climate services: underpinning research and social impacts” has been accepted by the Earth Perspectives Journal (Springer, http://www.earth-perspectives.com/).
The need of a special issue would be based on the following reasons:
• World Climate Conference-3, September 2009, organized by WMO, addressed the advancements in seasonal to multi-decadal climate predictions and to spur their applications to decision-making in socio-economic sectors, including food, water, energy, health, tourism and development sectors. WMO started a long process to develop a climate services perspective engaging climate research community and extending to other fields (social science, impacts and adaptation). Climate services involve research activities on the production, translation, transfer, and use of climate knowledge and information in climate-informed decision making and climate-smart policy and planning.
• Since 2009 several international initiatives have been organized. A good example, is the climate services partnership (http://www.climate-services.org/) which has been established in 2011 increasing the link among climate science, social aspects and economic research.
• The European DG research launched a first call on Climate science and Climate services on 2010. Two first EU-FP7 projects have run since 2010: CLIMRUN (www.climrun.eu) and ECLISE (www.eclise-project.eu). These two projects advanced in climate research to develop services in key sectors for Europe: energy, agriculture, water, tourism, coastal protection and other sectors. Moreover, the European initiative for climate service observation and modelling (European climate observation and modelling for services, short ECOMS) was launched November 2012 in Barcelona. This initiative, based on CLIMRUN and ECLISE results, will exploit recent advances in our understanding and ability to forecast climate variability and change. It will also work with stakeholders to identify opportunities to develop new and improved tools to exploit monthly-to-decadal forecasts which now hold the potential to be of great value to a wide range of relevant decision making.
Here, we explain the anticipated contribution of the special issue in advancing understanding in this area:
• Despite its potential value in informing European and international business and adaptation strategy, climate information is currently underexploited. Therefore, access to credible forecast information (seasonal to centennial), supported by informed guidance, could lead to significant advances in society's ability to effectively prepare for, and manage, climate-related risks.
• Increasing the quality, reliability and detail of climate information for societal use in the European and Mediterranean area by activating an effective exchange of information between the science and stakeholder communities, in key economic sectors: methodological aspects, new modeling tools.
• Developing a communication protocol by which climate information is transferred from the researchers to the stakeholders in order to develop suitable adaptation measures. The most innovative aspect in the development of this protocol will be its bottom-up approach, by which stakeholders will be involved in the design of the protocol from its early stages in conjunction and strong communication with the science community and the climate information providers.
• Providing new findings of the relevance of climate information in key sectors (energy, agriculture, water, tourism, coastal protection) and the economic value of climate services.
We identified several papers and authors for possible inclusion in the special issue, with a brief description of each paper.
i. PM Ruti and R van Oss (ENEA-KNMI): “state of the art of climate services at European scale”. This paper will provide an overview of climate services in Europe and their potential link to other regions such as North Africa.
ii. Chris Hewitt (MetOffice) and co-authors: “International perspective of climate services”. This paper will describe international initiatives (i.e. GFCS, CSP and ECOMS) and their potential for new research lines and climate policy at international level.
iii. C Buontempo (MetOffice) and co-authors: “Seasonal-to-decadal climate information and their applications”. The skill of seasonal-to-decadal forecasts will be assessed for key sectors and applications.
iv. Nathalie Rousset (Plan Bleu) and co-authors: “A protocol for Climate Services”. This paper will analyse the framework for developing climate services and the business model behind its development.
v. Christos Giannakopoulos (NOA) and co-authors: “Climate services on the forest fire sector”. Results of forest fire risks for the Mediterranean area will be presented and their link to climate change.
vi. R. Weisse (HZG) and co-authors: “Climate services for marine applications in Europe”. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of improved oceanographic data sets on waves and surges tailored to the need of the local users.
vii. PD Reyes (IC3) and co-authors: “the forecast quality of a multi-model set of monthly forecasts for the wind energy sector”. This paper will discuss the main challenges that both the sector and climate scientists are facing to succeed in the use of this climate information.
viii. C Goodess (CRU) and co-authors: “Identifying and translating stakeholder needs for climate information products”. This paper would address methodological and research aspects related to the development of climate services products and the process for involving stakeholders.
ix. F. Ludwig (WUR), C Donnelly (SMHI) and co-authors: “Water management and climate services at European scale”. Demonstration of climate information service for pan-European water-use sectors that are vulnerable to climate change induced hydrological changes: electricity, agriculture and environment (water quality).
x. G Dubois (TEC) and co-authors: “Tourism and climate services”. An in deep analysis of the Tourism sector in the Mediterranean area and the impact of climate change, considering risks and new developments.
xi. I, Tsanis (UniCrete) and co-authors: “climate services on water management for Crete”. A study on the impact of climate change on availability of fresh water on Crete.
xii. S. Sobolowski (UniBergen): “Precipitation changes and their impact on coastal cities in Norway”. On the impact of changes in intensity, duration and frequency of precipitation events and the implications for infrastructure, e.g. storm drain construction, along the Norwegian coast.
xiii. M. Brunetti (ISAC): “high resolution future climate data and their use for city management and solar-energy generation in Italy”.
xiv. Giannini Giannini V., Bellucci A., Dell'Aquila A., Coppola E., Gualdi S., Girogi F. (in prep.) Climate services: a participatory process to understand stakeholders' needs for integrated coastal zone management.
xv. Sperotto A., Torresan S., Gallina V., Critto A., Furlan E., Marcomini A.: Development of climate services related to pluvial flood impacts under climate change scenarios in the North Adriatic coast”.
Here a possible time-scale in which the special issue could be produced (paper writing, reviewing, submission of final copy to Global Environmental Change) assuming the proposal is accepted.
a. Paper writing, by May-June 2014
b. Reviewing by November 2014
c. Submission of final copy by December 2014 – January 2015
Other future scientific papers under preparation or already submitted are the following:
• Harader et al. (in prep.) Impacts of regional climate model resolution on rainfall extremes over France
• Dubois G., Dubois C. et al. (in prep.) TCI computation from the ENSEMBLES RCM simulations
• Petitta M, Calmanti S, Dell’Aquila A, Dubois C (in prep.) Regional climate models prediction of incoming solar radiation: climate services and users.
• Sevault F., Somot S., Alias A., Dubois C., Lebeaupin-Brossier C., Nabat P., Adloff F., Déqué M. And Decharme B. (submitted) Ocean simulation of the 1980-2012 period for the Mediterranean Sea using a fully-coupled atmosphere-land-hydrology-river-ocean Regional Climate System Model: design and evaluation. Tellus
• Torma et al. (in prep.) Climate change projections over the Med-CORDEX domain from a multiple physics ensemble of RegCM4 simulations.
• Adloff F., Somot S., Sevault F., Déqué M., Herrmann M., Dubois C., Aznar R. Padorno E., Alvarez-Fanjuls E., Jordà G., Gomis D. (in prep.) Sensivity of the Mediterranean Sea to boundary forcings in an ensemble of 21st century climate change scenarios. Clim Dyn
• Ruti P., S. Somot, C. Dubois, S. Calmanti, B. Ahrens, A. Alias, R. Aznar, J. Bartholy, S. Bastin, K. Béranger, J. Brauch, J.-C. Calvet, A. Carillo, B. Decharme, A. Dell’Aquila, V. Djurdjevic, P. Drobinski, A. Elizalde-Arellano, M. Gaertner, P. Galan, C. Gallardo, F. Giorgi, S. Gualdi, A. Harzallah, M. Herrmann, D. Jacob, S. Khodayar, S. Krichak, C. Lebeaupin, B. L’Heveder, L. Li, G. Liguro, P. Lionello, B. Onol, B. Rajkovic, G. Sannino, F. Sevault (2014) MED-CORDEX initiative for Mediterranean Climate studies (submitted to BAMS)
• Nabat P., Somot S., Mallet M., Sevault F., Chiacchio M., Wild M. (in revision) Direct and semi-direct aerosol radiative effect on the Mediterranean climate variability using a coupled Regional Climate System Model. Clim. Dyn.
• Torma, C. and Giorgi F. (2014): Assessing the contribution of different factors in regional climate model projections using the Factor Separation method. Atmosfpheric Science Letters (in press)
• Isigonis P., S. Torresan, A. Sperotto, A. Zabeo and Critto A., Marcomini A. Review of organisations, methods and tools for the provision of relevant climate services for different sectors of society. In P. Farah (Editor) “Sustainable energy and environmental risk analysis: the scientific support to decision making in Europe and Asia”, Under review.
• Casanueva A., Frías M.D. Herrera S., San-Martín D., Zaninovic K. and Gutiérrez J.M. (2014): Statistical downscaling of climate impact indices: Testing a direct approach, Climatic Change, submitted.
• A dissemination paper prepared by Plan Blue on Climate Services for the Mediterranean Region built on the results from the CLIM-RUN project and its recommendation is in writing phase, and will be published in the Plan Bleu and CLIM-RUN web sites
• An article on the “Le climat touristique de la Tunisie et le changement climatique ; produit par Latifa HENIA, Taher ALOUANE, et Zouhaier HLAOUI (du GREVACHOT), est accepté pour la publication dans les actes du colloque de l’Association Internationale de Climatologie (AIC), Dijon, France, juillet 2014”
4. The Mediterranean Network
CLIMRUN results will be an important legacy for the development of a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectorial network in the Mediterranean. The partnership and the work developed by CLIMRUN will be beneficial for the development of a Regional Framework for Climate Services which is intended to enable the establishment of regional mechanisms for successful cooperation between all Mediterranean countries, in dealing with adaptation to climate change impacts in several sectors (coastal, tourism, energy etc) and in providing actionable climate information for present climate and near future (seasonal to decadal time frame). Its strategic objective is to ensure the Mediterranean countries build their capacity to be resilient to the risks and impacts of climate variability and of climate change through implementing adaptation measures; improving decision making and good governance, improving understanding of climate change and their effects; education and awareness; and developing and strengthening partnership and cooperation.
This Regional Framework can integrate several ongoing activities developed by WMO (the GFCS), UNEP/MAP, and the European Commission. WMO is fostering the GFCS with three main levels: global, regional and national. A priority will be to work at regional scale in order to tailored global products and to trigger national initiatives. The regional outlook forum could be an essential tool, but it would be important to cover all the Mediterranean basin in order to bridge experiences between European and African countries. UNEP/MAP initiative to develop a Mediterranean framework for climate adaptation is another key ingredient. Both initiatives should collaborate in order to strengthen the adaptation capacity and the preparedness of the Mediterranean society to climate variability and extremes. EU could play a relevant role in order to build an adaptive capacity: establishing systems for data collection and monitoring, evaluation processes, awareness-rising initiatives, and policies to encourage, support and require responsible persons to incorporate climate change risks and adaptation into decision-making.
The Copernicus Climate Change service and the JPI-climate responds for Europe to environmental and societal challenges associated with human-induced climate changes. These two initiatives can contribute to the development of a regional framework and they could support the integration action in terms of resources and of scientific expertise. Moreover, the establishment of the European Climate Services Partnership could also benefit of the CLIMRUN experience.
These actions can concentrate first on the following priorities:
• involving met-services, but also educational and research institutions in a multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholders approach;
• developing a strategy for data monitoring and access for several climate user-oriented parameters (rainfall, radiation, …);
• developing targeted training activities for the intermediate tier which will trigger and maintain most of the hand-user services in the Mediterranean; most of weather services are driven by the production of forecasts, while the climate services define operational side starting from the users point of view. So, we need to foster the layer which is client specific.
All CLIMRUN partners are involved in these international initiatives and they will ensure the exploitation of its fundamental results
List of Websites:
www.climrun.eu