Climate Variability And Change

This book presents a comprehensive overview of climate variability and change in Africa, and includes impact assessments and case studies from integration frameworks, with a particular focus on climate, agriculture and water resources. Richly illustrated, the book highlights case studies from western, eastern and southern African region, and explores related development policies. Climate change adaptation research, prediction, and reanalysis are also addressed

Society today may be more vulnerable to global-scale, long-term, climate change than ever before. Even without any human influence, past records show that climate can be expected to continue to undergo considerable change over decades to centuries. Measures for adaption and mitigation will call for policy decisions based on a sound scientific foundation. Better understanding and prediction of climate variations can be achieved most efficiently through a nationally recognized "dec-cen" science plan. This book articulates the scientific issues that must be addressed to advance us efficiently toward that understanding and outlines the data collection and modeling needed.

Biometeorology continues to grow as a discipline. It is increasingly recognised for its importance in providing science of relevance to society and well being of the environment. This book is the first in a new book series on Biometeorology. The purpose of the new series is to communicate the interdisciplinary philosophy and science of biometeorology to as wide an audience as possible, introduce scientists and policy makers to the societal relevance of and recent developments in its s- fields and demonstrate how a biometeorological approach can provide insights to the understanding and possible solution of cross-cutting environmental issues. One such cross-cutting environmental issue is climate change. While the literature on the science of climate change, climate change mitigation and the impacts of climate change is voluminous, that on adaptation to climate change is meagre in comparison. The purpose of this book is to partly redress this imbalance by providing insights from a biometeorological perspective. The book acknowledges that society has a long history of adapting to the impacts associated with climatic variability and change but makes the point that climate change poses a real threat to already strained coping systems. Therefore there is a need to realign human use systems with changing climate conditions.

Extreme Hydrology and Climate Variability: Monitoring, Modelling, Adaptation and Mitigation is a compilation of contributions by experts from around the world who discuss extreme hydrology topics, from monitoring, to modeling and management. With extreme climatic and hydrologic events becoming so frequent, this book is a critical source, adding knowledge to the science of extreme hydrology. Topics covered include hydrometeorology monitoring, climate variability and trends, hydrological variability and trends, landscape dynamics, droughts, flood processes, and extreme events management, adaptation and mitigation. Each of the book's chapters provide background and theoretical foundations followed by approaches used and results of the applied studies. This book will be highly used by water resource managers and extreme event researchers who are interested in understanding the processes and teleconnectivity of large-scale climate dynamics and extreme events, predictability, simulation and intervention measures. Presents datasets used and methods followed to support the findings included, allowing readers to follow these steps in their own research Provides variable methodological approaches, thus giving the reader multiple hydrological modeling information to use in their work Includes a variety of case studies, thus making the context of the book relatable to everyday working situations for those studying extreme hydrology Discusses extreme event management, including adaption and mitigation

This book highlights the role that both infrastructure and governance play in the context of resilience and adaptation to climate variability and change. Eleven case studies analyze in-depth impacts of extreme events in projects, basins and regions in the Arid Americas (Unites States and Mexico), Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Nepal, Mexico, Pakistan, Turkey and South Africa. They discuss the importance of infrastructure (mainly reservoirs) in adaptation strategies, how planning and management aspects should improve in response to changing climatic, economic, social and environmental situations and what the management, institutional and financial challenges would be for their implementation. Governance aspects (policies, institutions and decision making) and technical and knowledge limitations are a substantial part of the analyses. The case studies argue that reservoirs are essential to build resilience contributing to adaptation to climate variability and change. However, that for them to be effective, they need to be planned and managed within a governance framework that considers long-term perspectives and multi-sector and multi-level actor needs and perspectives.

The objective of the book is to make a comprehensive documentation of the observed variability and change of the regional climate system over the Indian region using the past observed data. The book addresses all the important parameters of regional climate system so that a physically consistent view of the changes of the climate system is documented. The book contains 16 chapters written by the subject experts from different academic and research institutes in India. The book addresses all important components/parameters of the climate system, like rainfall, temperature, humidity, clouds, moisture, sea surface temperature and ocean heat content, sea level, glaciers and snow cover, tropical cyclones and monsoon depressions, extreme rainfall and rainstorms, heat waves and cold waves, meteorological droughts, aerosols, atmospheric aerosols, ozone and trace gases and atmospheric radiative fluxes. One chapter deals with the past monsoon using monsoon proxy data. The last chapter deals with the future climate change projections over the Indian region (rainfall and temperature) made using coupled climate models. Most of the analyses (especially on rainfall, temperature, extreme rainfall, sea surface temperature, meteorological droughts) are based on the data for a longer period of 110 years, 1901–2010. For some other parameters like moisture, clouds, heat waves and cold waves, atmospheric aerosols, ozone and trace gases and radiative fluxes, data of shorter period have been used. The articles documented inter-annual and decadal variability in addition to documenting long term trends of different parameters. The trends have been tested for statistical significance using standard techniques. It is expected that the present book will be an excellent reference material for researchers as well as for policy makers. These results will be useful in interpreting future climate change scenarios over the region being projected using coupled climate models. Further analysis of these results is required for attributing the observed variability and change to natural and anthropogenic activities.

Examines the implications of possible climate changes and variability on both global and regional water resources.