BACC - Assessment of past and expected future regional climate change in the Baltic Sea Region

Speaker: Hans von Storch

GKSS Research Centre, Germany

Szczecin, 25. May 2009

•Basin: 2.2 Mill. km2

•Baltic Sea: 380 000 km2

•85 million in 14 countries

•Variable climate and topography

•Considerable seasonal, inter-annual, decadal and long-term variations

•Environmental issues of concern (HELCOM)

The Baltic Sea Basin = The BALTEX Region

from SeaWiFS on 1 April 2004

The Baltic Sea Catchment Assessment: BACC

An effort to establish which scientifically legitimized knowledge about anthropogenic climate change is available for the Baltic Sea catchment.

Approximately 80 scientist from 10 countries have documented and assessed the published knowledge.

The assessment has been accepted by the inter-governmental HELCOM commission as a basis for its future deliberations.

In 2012 a second assessment report (BACC II) will be published.

The purpose of BACC is to provide the scientific community

and the public with an assessment of ongoing and future climate change in the Baltic Sea Basin. This is done by reviewing and assessing published scientific knowledge on climate change in the Basin.

An important element is the comparison with the historical past (until about 1800) to provide a framework for the severity and unusualness of the change.

The unique feature of BACC is the combination of evidence on climate change and related impacts on marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems in the Baltic Sea Basin.

It is the first systematic scientific effort for assessing climate change in the Baltic Sea Basin.

No additional or external funding was needed.

The results have not been influenced by either political or special interests.

www.baltex-research.eu/BACC

Past and current climate change

Air temperature increased by about 1.2 C since 1871 until 2004.

Most pronounced warming in spring.Related observed changes in winter runoff,

ice duration and snow.More precipitation in the 2nd half of the

20th century with major regional variations.No systematic change in windiness found.No clear long-term trends in Baltic Sea

salinity.

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1870 1900 1930 1960 1990

Te

mp

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ture

an

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( C

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North Spring Filter South Spring Filter

Baltic Sea basin land surface spring air temperature 1871-2004

Past and current climate change: Air temperature

Winter Spring Summer Fall Year

North 1,17 1,95 0,78 1,04 1,3

South 1,30 1,43 0,40 0.80 1,01

Linear temperature trends 1871 – 2004 for the northern (latitude > 60 °N) and southern (latitude < 60 °N) Baltic Sea basin.

Anomaly time series of annual precipitation over Sweden, 1860-2004 (reference period 1961-90).

Precipitation

Past and current climate change: Wind

No changes in wind and storminess

Number of low pressure systems (p< 980 hPa) in Stockholm and Lund

Variation of annual precipitation amount over Denmark, 1874-2004 (Cappelen and Christensen 2005).

Volkhov-Volkhovo

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50

100

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Years

Ice

cove

r d

ura

tio

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ays

Changes in river ice cover duration (Volkhov river, Russia).

Tornionjoki

20.4.

30.4.

10.5.

20.5.

30.5.

9.6.

19.6.

1693 1743 1793 1843 1893 1943 1993

Year

Bre

ak-u

p (

dat

e)

Ice break up in Tornionjoki River, Finland.

Past and current climate change: Precip and ice

salinity

Ongoing changes in regional ecosystems

Associated changes in terrestrial ecosystems include - earlier spring phenological phase, - northward species shift, and - increased growth and vigour of vegetation.

Robust assessments of changes in marine ecosystems related to climate change are hardly possible at this time. Further research is needed to discriminate between climate change and other anthropogenic drivers such as over-fishing, euthrophication, air pollution and land use changes.

Past and current climate change: Terrestrial ecosystems

Mean rate of change (days/year) of date of leaf unfolding in birch, 1958-2000

Marine Ecosystems:Regime Shift in about 1988?

Caveats

Link to raising greenhouse gas concentrations is plausible, but no robust regional attribution has been established. (On the global scale this link has been established)

Many conclusions relate to different time periods studied, changes occur at different time scales: Variability versus trend problem.

Only few observational records span the entire recent 150 to 200 years.

Changing observational techniques influence data homogeneity.

“Detection and attribution” studies at the regional scale are urgently needed to determine the influence of anthropogenic factors in changing the regional climate.

Assessment of Baltic Sea water temperature 1900-2000:

Data inhomogeneities prevail

Fonselius and Vaderrama (2003)

Past and current climate change: Baltic Sea Temperature

Scenarios of future climate …

… constructed by feeding assumed emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols into quasi-realistic models of the climate system.

Future emissions can not be predicted; only plausible and consistent visions of the future (i.e., scenarios) are possible.

Scenarios provide a frame for decision makers to explore the range of policy options to deal with the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

Scenarios are no predictions.

Scenarios of future climate change

Global climate models (GCMs) project warming over the Baltic Sea basin.

Regional scenarios are constructed from regional climate modelling, which provides more geographical detail and is broadly consistent with GCM projections.

Results from regional climate modelling do not fully reflect model and scenario uncertainties.

Within these limits, these results give an indication of plausible future changes by the end of the 21st century.

Projections of future regional climate

change Increasing temperatures very likely during

the entire 21st century, but size of the trend depends considerably on model.

Projected mean precipitation increases, largest increase in winter throughout the basin and decrease in summer in the southern basin.

No clear projection for wind speed and storms.

Regional climate model simulated precipitation changes in % for winter (DJF) between the periods 1961‑1990 and 2071‑2100 using the SRES‑A2 emissions scenario. The upper plots show results from the HIRHAM Model and the lower plots are from the RCAO Model. Plots on the left used GCM boundary conditions from HadAM3H; plots on the right used ECHAM4/OPYC3.

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BACC projections: Winter precipitation

Regional climate model simulated precipitation changes in % for summer (JJA) between the periods 1961‑1990 and 2071‑2100 using the SRES‑A2 emissions scenario. The upper plots show results from the HIRHAM Model and the lower plots are from the RCAO Model. Plots on the left used GCM boundary conditions from HadAM3H; plots on the right used ECHAM4/OPYC3.

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BACC projections: Summer precipitation

BACC projections: River runoff

Change of river flow to Baltic Sea basins 2071-2100

BACC projections: Sea ice

Mean number of ice days in a present day simulation (right) and two scenarios for 2070-2100 (bottom)

Projections of future climate impacts on terrestrial

ecosystemsThe expected future warming is associated to a possibly accelerated continuation of the present trends in - earlier spring phenological phases, - northward species shifts and - increased growth and vigour of vegetation changes in the relative cover of

different vegetation types in Northern Europe

Projections of future climate impacts on marine ecosystems

No detailed, comprehensive analysis available –projections are more ad-hoc and uncertain.

Effect of other changing influences hardly predictable.

Possible Baltic Sea salinity decrease would have major effect on marine fauna.

Expected changes in precipitation and river runoff may have additional detrimental effects on the problem of eutrophication.

Marine ecosystems – expected consequences of ...

… increase of temperature

Higher metabolic rates Impact on acclimation capacity Reduce the general fitness Reduce enzyme activities Shift in species composition (phytoplankton) Enhanced cyanobacteria blooms

Marine ecosystems – expected consequences of ...

… reduction in sea ice Ringed seal survival

… decrease of salinityOsmotic stressShift in species composition (phyto– & zooplankton)Egg survivalFood quality for fish (growth rate)Distribution of benthosReduction of fitnessInvading species

-a marked increase of mean surface air temperature of more than 0.7 C in the region during the recent century; - consistent changes in other variables such as extreme temperatures, increase of winter runoff, shorter ice seasons and reduced ice thickness on rivers and lakes in many areas; - a spatially non-uniform pattern of upward and downward trends in precipitation, which is difficult to be related to anthropogenic climate change;

- evidence on increasing Baltic Sea SST only significant for the 3 recent decades, the century-long data records may have severe inhomogeneities;

- assessment of indications that at least part of the recent warming in the Baltic Sea basin is related to the steadily increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases;

Major findings (1)

- for the future, projections indicate that increased winter precipitation may emerge later in this century over the entire area, while summers may become drier in the southern part – but this expectation is uncertain for the time being;

-for the Baltic Sea, a tendency towards lower salinity and less ice coverage could be expected;

-no clear signals, whether for the past or for future scenarios, are available with regard to wind conditions;

- observed changes in past temperature have been associated with consistent changes in terrestrial ecosystems, such as earlier spring phenological phases, northward species shifts and increased growth and vigour of vegetation, these changes are expected to continue and become more pronounced in the future; - an assessment for the marine ecosystem of the Baltic Sea is particularly difficult because of the presence of strong non-climatic stressors such as eutrophication, fishing, release of pollutants, related to human activities.

Major findings (2)

BACC @ Springer

Publication in January 2008:

More than 30 contributing institutionsMore than 80 contributing authors from 13 countries More than 475 pagesMore than 2000 references (~150 non- English)

www.baltex-research.eu/BACC

Ch1: Introduction and summaryCh2: Past and current climate changeCh3: Projections of future climate changeCh4: Climate-related change in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystemsCh5: Climate-related change in marine ecosystemsCh6: Annexes

BACC and HELCOM

HELCOM Thematic Assessment published May 2007

The report is based on the BACC material but condensed to 59 pages with a focus of the marine environment of the Baltic Sea. It has been approved by the HELCOM contracting governments of 9 countries and the European Commission. An unprecedented cooperation of a climate-related research program and an intergovernmental body