Impact of climate change on Baltic resorts
Uldis Bethers, Juris Senņikovs
Laboratory for mathematical modelling of environmental and technological processesFaculty of Physics and mathematicsUniversity of Latvia
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE SCENARIOUS
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
Choice of RCM
PRUDENCE - EU FP5 project to assess and evaluate European RCMs. PRUDENCE provides access to modelling results by 22+ European
RCM for contemporary climate (reference period, 1961-1990) and climate change scenarios (2071-2100)
Global scenario
Global climate model
Regional climate model
Comparison of RCM vs. observations indicates SMHI model most suitable for our region
Data used in this presentation
National research programme “Impact of climate change on Latvian water environment” (2006-2009). WP1 “Scenarious and modelling”. In 2007:
1. Evaluation of RCM data
2. Method of RCM data correction
3. Three long-term climatic data sets for Latvia
• Contemporary climate (1961-1990)
• Climate change scenario B2 (2071-2100)
• Climate change scenario A2 (2071-2100)
Temperature and precipitation data used for analysis in this presentation
Monthly means and their interannual variability considered
Monthly average temperatures
Jūrmala
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
Te
mp
era
ture
, d
eg
C
REF
B2
A2
Increase of average monthly temperatures
Difference A2-REF
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
Te
mp
era
ture
ch
an
ge
, de
gC
Jūrmala
Palanga
Parnu
Ventspils
Monthly average precipitation
Jūrmala
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
Pre
cip
ita
tio
n,
mm
/da
y
REF
B2
A2
Change of monthly average precipitation
Difference A2-REF
-0.8
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
Ch
an
ge
of
pre
cip
ita
tio
n,
mm
/da
y
Jūrmala
Palanga
Parnu
Ventspils
T-P diagram
Jūrmala
3
1
2
45
6
78
9
1011
12
1
2
34
5
6
78
9
10
11
12
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
Monthly average temperature, degC
Mo
nth
ly a
ve
rag
e p
rec
ipit
ati
on
, m
m/d
ay
REF
A2
Annual REF
Annual A2
T-P diagram
Palanga
3
1
2 45
6
7
8
9
101112
1
2
3
4
5
6 7
8
9
10
1112
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
Monthly average temperature, degC
Mo
nth
ly a
ve
rag
e p
rec
ipit
ati
on
, m
m/d
ay
REF
A2
Annual REF
Annual A2
Monthly average parameters - summary
• The average temperature in our region will increase by 4° (scenario A2) or 2.6° (scenario B2)
• The annual precipitation will increase by 8-11% (scenario A2) or by 4-8% (scenario B2)
• The largest temperature increase is expected in Dec-Jan (up to 6°), whilst the smallest in June
• Monthly average precipitation will increase in winters (Dec-Feb) and in beggining of summers (Jun), while decrease in summers (Jul-Sep)
Interannual variability of monthly temperature
Jūrmala-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
Mo
nth
ly a
ve
rag
e t
em
pe
ratu
re,
de
gC
Min_T_A2
Max_T_A2
Avg_T_A2
Min_T_ref
Max_T_ref
Avg_T_ref
Interannual variability of monthly precipitation
Jūrmala
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
Mo
nth
ly p
rec
ipit
ati
on
, m
m/d
ay
Min_P_A2
Max_P_A2
Avg_P_A2
Min_P_ref
Max_P_ref
Avg_P_ref
Interannual variability of monthly means - summary
• Maximum values of monthly mean temperatures will increase more than average temperature in summer months (Jul-Sep)
• Minimum values of monthly mean temperatures will increase more than average temperatures in winter months (Dec-Jan)
• Interannual variation of monthly temperatures will decrease in winters but increase in summers
• Interannual variation of monthly precipitation will change insignificantly except for June