Collaborators

Urban Climate Modeling

• David Grawe (Met. Inst., Univ. Hamburg)
• David Flagg (Met. Inst., Univ. Hamburg)
• Christian Daneke (Inst. f. Geog., Univ. Hamburg)

Regional Climate Modeling

• Daniela Jacob (CSC)
• Arne Kriegsmann (CSC)

North Sea Modeling

• Thomas Pohlmann (lfM, Univ. Hamburg)
• Bernhard Meyer (lfM, Univ. Hamburg)
• Kieran O’Driscoll (lfM, Univ. Hamburg)

Project Coordination

• Eduardo Zorita (HZG)
• Martin Claussen (CliSAP)

Project Support

CliSAP

Subject

The European Union considers the limit of a two degree increase in global mean annual temperature relative to the pre-industrial level a desirable target to avoid disruptive climate change. This target has also been adopted in the Copenhagen Accord in December 2009. This project aims to estimate plausible climate scenarios for the Hamburg region provided that the global mean annual temperature rise can be limited to two degrees within the 21^st century. The project makes use of global climate model simulations driven by scenarios of global greenhouse emissions that fulfill these targets. The global simulations will be downscaled at a higher spatial resolution using dynamical downscaling with a regional model. These datasets will be used to estimate climate impacts for this region. Some of these impacts will be addressed in the project, such as the impact on urban climate or changes in the North Sea circulation.

In order to estimate the impact on the urban climate of Hamburg at a very high resolution (1x1 km²), the regional simulations will be further refined using a statistical-dynamical downscaling technique. Possible land-use changes and urban development are incorporated into these simulations in order to quantify their impact on the urban climate.

References

• Van Vuuren et al. (2007). Stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at low levels: an assessment of reduction strategies and costs. Climatic Change 81, 119-159.
• EU (2005) Council of the EU (2005) Council of the European Union, Presidency conclusions, March 22-23. http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docspressData/en/ec/84335.pdf.
• Barredo Jl and Delgado G. (2008). Towards a set of IPCC SRES urban land use scenarios: modeling urban land use in the Madrid region IN: Paegelow and Olmedo (eds.) Modelling Environmental Dynamics, Springer, pp. 363-385.