Fung, Fai, Lopez, Ana and New, Mark (2011) Water availability in +2 C and +4 C worlds. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 369 (1934). pp. 99-116. ISSN 1364-503X
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
While the parties to the UNFCCC agreed in the December 2009 Copenhagen Accord that a 2 degrees C global warming over pre-industrial levels should be avoided, current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions reductions from these same parties will lead to a 50 : 50 chance of warming greater than 3.5 degrees C. Here, we evaluate the differences in impacts and adaptation issues for water resources in worlds corresponding to the policy objective (+2 degrees C) and possible reality (+4 degrees C). We simulate the differences in impacts on surface run-off and water resource availability using a global hydrological model driven by ensembles of climate models with global temperature increases of 2 degrees C and 4 degrees C. We combine these with UN-based population growth scenarios to explore the relative importance of population change and climate change for water availability. We find that the projected changes in global surface run-off from the ensemble show an increase in spatial coherence and magnitude for a +4 degrees C world compared with a +2 degrees C one. In a +2 degrees C world, population growth in most large river basins tends to override climate change as a driver of water stress, while in a +4 degrees C world, climate change becomes more dominant, even compensating for population effects where climate change increases runoff. However, in some basins where climate change has positive effects, the seasonality of surface run-off becomes increasingly amplified in a +4 degrees C climate.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/ |
| Additional Information: | © 2010 The Royal Society |
| Divisions: | Grantham Research Institute |
| Subjects: | G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences |
| Date Deposited: | 20 Dec 2010 11:50 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Sep 2024 23:00 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/30983 |
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