Content

The global climate system (1st session)

Energy balance of the Earth system
Atmospheric and oceanic circulation
Regional climates
Climate variability, severe weather, hazards and risks (2nd session)
External and internal climate variability
Severe climate events: droughts and heat waves
Severe weather events: hurricanes and tornadoes
Climate change, mitigation and adaptation strategies (3rd session)
Global climate change: what do we know?
Mitigating global climate change
Regional consequences of global climate change
Adapting to current and future hazards due to weather and climate

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 1
 External and internal climate variability
Climates are not stationary but show temporal variability over time scales of months to
millions of years.
Climates also vary spatially. Spatial patterns may change over time.
Climate variations may be externally forced, e.g. by
a) varying solar activity,
b) varying orbital parameters (Milankovitch cycles),
c) meteorites,
d) plate tectonics.
Climate variations my be internally caused by feedback loops within the climate system.

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 2
 External and internal climate variability

Goosse H., P.Y. Barriat, W. Lefebvre, M.F. Loutre and V. Zunz, 2008-2010: Introduction to climate dynamics
and climate modeling. Online textbook available at http://www.climate.be/textbook.
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 3
 External and internal climate variability

https://climate.copernicus.eu/node/201
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 4
 External and internal climate variability

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 5
 External and internal climate variability

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 6
 External and internal climate variability

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 7
 External and internal climate variability

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 8
 Internal climate variability: Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO)

Univ. Washington/IPCC, from Tollefson, J. (2014): Climate change: The case of the missing heat, Nature, 505/7483
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 9
 Internal climate variability: Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO)

Univ. Washington/IPCC, from Tollefson, J. (2014): Climate change: The case of the missing heat, Nature, 505/7483
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 10
 Internal climate variability: Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO)

Univ. Washington/IPCC, from Tollefson, J. (2014): Climate change: The case of the missing heat, Nature, 505/7483
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 11
Internal climate variability: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

Annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in degree Celsius.

Goosse H., P.Y. Barriat, W. Lefebvre, M.F. Loutre and V. Zunz, 2008-2010: Introduction to climate dynamics
and climate modeling. Online textbook available at http://www.climate.be/textbook.
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 12
Internal climate variability: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 13
Internal climate variability: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

La Nina Conditions

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 14
Internal climate variability: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/why-are-there-so-many-enso-indexes-instead-just-one
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 15
Internal climate variability: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/glossary/soi.shtml

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 16
Internal climate variability: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI)

See also: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/soihtm1.shtml
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 17
Internal climate variability: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201213
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 18
Internal climate variability: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 19
Internal climate variability: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 20
 Severe climate events
Severe climate events are episodes of anomalous climate conditions that could be
hazardous to ecosystems, humans and societies.
These episodes may last as short as a few weeks up to centuries.
They are the part of climate variability that causes problems to humans and societies.
Major scientific problems are:
a) to predict severe climate events, and
b) to identify the beginning of a severe climate event (particularly of droughts).

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 21
 Severe climate events: droughts
Definition
Droughts are episodes (months to years) during which:
a) local or regional water budget is below-average thus endangering ecosystems, or
b) human demands for water exceed natural availability of water.
Causes and effects
Meteorological droughts are caused by prolonged times of below-average precipitation,
eventually combined with increased evapotranspiration due to hot, dry weather and
strong winds.
Agricultural droughts are shortages in surface water required for crop production or
vegetation growth in rangelands. They may be caused by meteorological droughts or by
overexploitation of water resources (affecting both water quantity and quality).
Hydrological droughts are caused by below-average water storage in aquifers, lakes or
reservoirs. They may be caused by the same processes leading to agricultural droughts,
but may also be the consequences of (human-induced) changes in hydrological systems.
Droughts may trigger land degradation and desertification!

More details on and examples of droughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 22
 Severe climate events: droughts

Annual mean precipitation in cm per year.

Goosse H., P.Y. Barriat, W. Lefebvre, M.F. Loutre and V. Zunz, 2008-2010: Introduction to climate dynamics
and climate modeling. Online textbook available at http://www.climate.be/textbook.
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 23
 Severe climate events: droughts

Long term annual mean evaporation minus precipitation (E-P) budget

based on ERA-40 reanalyses. Figure from Trenberth et al. (2007).
Goosse H., P.Y. Barriat, W. Lefebvre, M.F. Loutre and V. Zunz, 2008-2010: Introduction to climate dynamics
and climate modeling. Online textbook available at http://www.climate.be/textbook.
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 24
 Severe climate events: droughts

Global water resources

United States Geological Survey (USGS): ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html
MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 25
 Severe climate events: droughts

More than a century of rainfall data in the Sahel show an unusually wet period from 1950
until 1970 (positive index values), followed by extremely dry years from 1970 to 1990
(negative index values). From 1990 until present rainfall returned to levels slightly below the
1898–1993 average, but year-to-year variability was high.

Source: Benedict Seidl (Wikipedia). See also http://research.jisao.washington.edu/data_sets/sahel/

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 26
 Severe climate events: heat waves
Definition
Heat waves are episodes (days to months) during which local or regional air temperature
is excessively high with respect to normal conditions. A common definition is missing!
Causes and effects
Heat waves may be caused by prolonged times (three days, at least) of quasi-stationary
weather conditions leading to hot and mostly sunny weather, eventually combined with
high humidity and weak winds.
Heat waves may cause damages to streets, roads, buildings etc. since materials may not
be able to withstand high air temperature for long time.
Heat waves increase electricity demands in regions where people are commonly use air
conditioning. This leads to increased consumption of resources, and very often to
increased emission of greenhouse gases.
Heat waves may endanger human well-being, working productivity and health. Well
known are increased morbidity and mortality during heat waves.

Urban heat islands may exaggerate the effects of heat waves in cities!

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 27
 Severe climate events: heat waves
Heat Wave in Europe Summer 2003

Pirard et al. (2005): ‚Summary of the mortality impact

assessment of the 2003 heat wave in France’, Euro
Surveillance, 10/7, 554.

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 28
 Severe climate events: heat waves

Psiloglou et al. 2007

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 29
 Severe weather events
Severe weather events are episodes of infrequent weather conditions that could be
hazardous to ecosystems, humans and societies.
These episodes may last as minutes up to a few days.
Major problems are to predict severe weather events with respect to
a) onset and duration,
b) intensity,
c) location and spatial extent.
Often, the general situation (precondition) is predictable with sufficient lead time and
accuracy but not the trigger process for the event.

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 30
 Severe weather events: hurricanes
Hurricane Kathrina (28.05.2005)
23. - 31.8.2005
maximum wind speed (1 min): 280 km/h
minimum air pressure: 902 hPa
> 1800 fatalities
> 57 Mrd. US $ property losses

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 31
 Severe weather events: hurricanes

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 32
 Severe weather events: hurricanes

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 33
 Severe weather events: hurricanes
The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
Category Wind speed Storm surge
mph (km/h) ft (m)

5 ≥156 (≥250) >18 (>5.5)

4 131–155 (210–249) 13–18 (4.0–5.5)

3 111–130 (178–209) 9–12 (2.7–3.7)

2 96–110 (154–177) 6–8 (1.8–2.4)

1 74–95 (119–153) 4–5 (1.2–1.5)

Additional classifications
Tropical storm 39–73 (63–117) 0–3 (0–0.9)

Tropical depression 0–38 (0–62) 0 (0)

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 34
 Severe weather events: hurricanes

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 35
 Severe weather events: hurricanes

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 36
 Severe weather events: tornadoes

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 37
 Severe weather events: tornadoes

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 38
 Severe weather events: tornadoes
Fujita scale
F0 Gale tornado 40-72 mph
Some damage to chimneys; breaks branches off trees; pushes over shallow-rooted trees; damages sign boards

F1 Moderate tornado 73-112 mph

The lower limit is the beginning of hurricane wind speed; peels surface off roofs; mobile homes pushed off foundations or
overturned; moving autos pushed off the roads; attached garages may be destroyed

F2 Significant tornado 113-157 mph

Considerable damage. Roofs torn off frame houses; mobile homes demolished; boxcars pushed over; large trees snapped
or uprooted; light object missiles generated

F3 Severe tornado 158-206 mph

Roof and some walls torn off well constructed houses; trains overturned; most trees in fores uprooted

F4 Devastating tornado 207-260 mph

Well-constructed houses leveled; structures with weak foundations blown off some distance; cars thrown and large
missiles generated

F5 Incredible tornado 261-318 mph

Strong frame houses lifted off foundations and carried considerable distances to disintegrate; automobile sized missiles
fly through the air in excess of 100 meters; trees debarked; steel re-inforced concrete structures badly damaged

MSc. Int. Sustainable Management – Ecological Background of Economic Activity, Part 1: Climate Theory (2) – Prof. Dr. Dieter Scherer 39
 Severe weather events: tornadoes

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 Severe weather events: tornadoes

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