Europes ecological backbone.pdf

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Climate change and Europe's mountains Figure 5.3 Seasonal changes in precipitation and temperature until the end of the 21st century, according to CLM Scenario A1B Source: EEA, 2009. 2000; Wielke et al., 2004; Martin and Etchevers, 2005). Keller et al. (2005) report an average decrease of a month in the modelled snowmelt for Alpine rock and sward habitats in response to a 4 °C increase in mean temperature. According to model projections following different greenhouse gas emission scenarios, the thickness and duration of snowpack in the Pyrenees will decrease dramatically over the next century, especially in the central and eastern areas of the Spanish Pyrenees (Lopez-Moreno et al., 2008). The magnitude of these impacts will follow a marked altitudinal gradient. The maximum 80 Europe's ecological backbone: recognising the true value of our mountains
Climate change and Europe's mountains Box 5.2 Future climate in the Greater Alpine Area Over the past century, the mean temperature in the Alps increased by 1.1 °C. GCMs indicate that, by 2100, the temperature of the Alpine region, relative to the period 1980–1999, may increase by up to 5 °C (IPCC, 2007), and that summer precipitation will decrease significantly. Analysis of monthly mean values from six GCMs using the A1B emission scenario for the Greater Alpine Area for 2071–2100 showed increases in temperature of 3.4 °C in winter and 4.3 °C in summer relative to 1961–1990. On average, these models show that precipitation will increase by 10 % in winter and decrease by 30 % in summer (Smiatek et al., 2009). Several statistical and dynamic downscaling approaches have been applied to derive highly resolved climate change information for the Alpine region. While the regional models reproduce spatial precipitation patterns and the annual cycle in complex terrain, there are still large biases in precipitation when compared with observations. In the PRUDENCE project (Christensen and Christensen, 2007), an ensemble of 25 RCMs, mostly run with a horizontal resolution of 0.5 °C in a time slice experiment using the A2 scenario, showed a mean increase in the seasonal mean temperature in the Alps of 3.53 °C in winter and 5.04 °C in summer, compared to the 1961–1990 mean. The relative seasonal mean precipitation change was + 20 % in winter and – 26 % in summer. Schmidli et al. (2007) evaluated six statistical and three dynamical downscaling models, and found a strong decrease in mean precipitation for the entire Alpine region in summer for 2071–2100; a substantial reduction in the frequency of wet days in summer resulted in a large increase (50–100 %) in the maximum length of dry spells. Most models also simulate an increase in precipitation intensity on wet days in summer and in the 90 % quantile of precipitation on wet days in winter, compared to 1961–1990. Some models indicate increased precipitation intensity in summer, despite the strong decrease in mean precipitation. Figure 5.4 shows the simulated changes in temperature and various precipitation statistics as simulated by two RCMs — HIRHAM (Christensen and Christensen, 2007) and RegCM (Gao et al., 2006) — driven with boundary forcings from the HadAM3 GCM, and also the transient CCLM (Rockel et al., 2008) RCM, driven with boundary data from the ECHAM5 GCM as evaluated by Smiatek et al. (2009). For the Alpine region, the RCM models simulate a winter temperature increase for 2071–2100 of 2 °C to over 3 °C and, in summer, of almost 5 °C compared to 1960–1990. Summer precipitation decreased up to 29 %, with a substantial increase in the maximum length of dry spells. For winter, all models indicate a precipitation increase, with more wet days and strong precipitation events. In particular regions, however, the RCMs simulate much greater differences: an increase of more than 30 % in winter and a decrease of almost 40 % in summer. Figure 5.4 a) Precipitation ratio 1.6 b) 1.4 1.2 1.0 0.8 0.6 Simulated change in precipitation (2071–2100 to 1961–1990) and temperature (2071–2100 to 1961–1990) statistics in the Greater Alpine Area in (a) winter and (b) summer for four Regional Climate Models 0.4 MEA-P FRE-1 FRE-15 Q90 XCCD MEA-T Precipitation ratio 1.6 1.4 1.2 1.0 Temperature difference (K) 6 Temperature difference (K) 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 5 4 3 The analysis of the regional climate simulations shows that results based on different regional models, different driving global models, and different emission scenarios show similar trends — but that these differ in the magnitude of the expected climate change signal. Nevertheless, there are still large biases in the reproduction of the current climate, and therefore substantial uncertainties in the magnitude of expected climate change. Source: Gerhard Smiatek and Harald Kunstmann (Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany). 0.8 0.6 0.4 Note: MEA-P FRE-1 FRE-15 Q90 XCCD MEA-T CLM A1B HIRHAM A2 CLM REGCM B2 CLM REGCM A2 Statistics: MEAP: mean climatological precipitation, FRE-1: frequency (ratio) of wet-days with precipitation > 1 mm, FRE-15: frequency (ratio) of days with precipitation > 15 mm, Q90: 90 % quantile of the distribution function on wet days, XCCD: maximum number of consecutive dry days, MEA-T: mean climatological temperature. 2 1 0 Europe's ecological backbone: recognising the true value of our mountains 81
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EEA Report No 6/2010 Europe's ecolo
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Cover design: EEA Cover photo © Ca
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Contents 7 Land cover and uses.....
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Acknowledgements Box 1.5: Maja Vasi
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Acknowledgements Chapter 8 Mountain
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Executive summary general, populati
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Executive summary Among all Europe'
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Introduction and background Interna
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Introduction and background same co
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Introduction and background instrum
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Introduction and background coopera
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Introduction and background instrum
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Introduction and background Box 1.4
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Introduction and background made. W
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Introduction and background Map 1.2
Page 32 and 33: Introduction and background require
Page 34 and 35: Introduction and background Map 1.3
Page 36 and 37: Mountain people: status and trends
Page 48 and 49: Mountain economies and accessibilit
Page 62 and 63: Ecosystem services from Europe's mo
Page 76 and 77: Climate change and Europe's mountai
Page 88 and 89: The water towers of Europe lowland
Page 90 and 91: The water towers of Europe Box 6.1
Page 94 and 95: The water towers of Europe Figure 6
Page 96 and 97: The water towers of Europe • Navi
Page 98 and 99: The water towers of Europe in the a
Page 106 and 107: The water towers of Europe (Livings
Page 112 and 113: Land cover and uses 7 Land cover an
Page 114 and 115: Land cover and uses Map 7.2 Dominan
Page 116 and 117: Land cover and uses Table 7.1 Distr
Page 118 and 119: Land cover and uses Figure 7.3 Land
Page 120 and 121: Land cover and uses Table 7.2 Chang
Page 122 and 123: Land cover and uses Box 7.1 Land us
Page 124 and 125: Land cover and uses Box 7.1 Land us
Page 126 and 127: Land cover and uses Figure 7.7 Aver
Page 128 and 129: Land cover and uses Box 7.3 Land re
Page 130 and 131: Land cover and uses Box 7.4 Land-us
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Land cover and uses Figure 7.11 Con
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Land cover and uses country before
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Land cover and uses Table 7.8 Natio
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Land cover and uses Map 7.6 Area cl
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Land cover and uses Box 7.6 Identif
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Land cover and uses Table 7.10 Tota
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Biodiversity 8 Biodiversity At the
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Biodiversity The geographic scope o
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Biodiversity Recognising that not a
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Biodiversity Figure 8.1 Number of m
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Biodiversity Figure 8.3 Habitats in
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Biodiversity For each habitat type,
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Biodiversity Box 8.2 Alien plants i
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Biodiversity Box 8.3 Climate change
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Biodiversity The pattern of success
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Biodiversity Box 8.4 Recent changes
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Protected areas Box 9.1 Sharr Mount
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Protected areas 9.1 Natura 2000 sit
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Protected areas Table 9.1 Area of N
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Protected areas the mountains of th
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Protected areas Figure 9.3 Distribu
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Protected areas Figure 9.7 Distribu
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Protected areas Figure 9.10 Changes
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Protected areas Box 9.3 Land use de
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Protected areas Figure 9.12 Percent
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Protected areas Box 9.4 Kaçkar Mou
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Protected areas Table 9.7 Area of n
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Protected areas scale. Overlaps are
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Protected areas Box 9.5 Cantabrian
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Integrated approaches to understand
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References References Chapter 1 All
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References European Union, 2010. Pr
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References European Commission, 200
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References Yoshino, M., 2005. Mount
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References World Resources Institut
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References Faggian, P. and Giorgi,
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References Lopez-Moreno, J.I.; Goye
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References Ambrosetti, W. and Barba
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References characteristics of the l
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References Rogora, M., 2007. 'Synch
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References Chapter 7 Aitchison, J.
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References Williamson, T., 2002. Th
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References Lelek, A., 1987. The fre
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References Berthold, P., 2000: Voge
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References years of simulated clima
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References Konstanz, erschienen 199
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References EEA/UNEP, 2004. High nat
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References Innovations in GIS 7. Ta
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Appendix 1 Species Annex Endemic to
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Appendix 2 Appendix 2 Mountain habi
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Appendix 2 Code ( a ) Name Category
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Appendix 2 Code ( a ) Name Category
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TH-AL-10-006-EN-C doi:10.2800/43450
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