Dataset Information

Revisiting future extreme precipitation trends in the Mediterranean.

ABSTRACT: Global warming is anticipated to intensify the hydrological cycle. However, this is neither expected to be globally uniform nor is the relationship between temperature increase and rainfall intensities expected to be linear. The objective of this study is to assess changes in annual rainfall extremes, total annual precipitation, and their relationship in the larger Mediterranean region. We use an up-to-date ensemble of 33 regional climate simulations from the EURO-CORDEX initiative at 0.11° resolution. We analyse the significance of trends for 1951-2000 and 2001-2100 under a 'business-as-usual' pathway (RCP8.5). Our future projections indicate a strong north/south Mediterranean gradient, with significant, decreasing trends in the magnitude of daily precipitation extremes in the south and the Maghreb region (up to -10 mm/decade) and less profound, increasing trends in the north. Despite the contrasting future trends, the 50-year daily precipitation extremes are projected to strongly increase (up to 100%) throughout the region. The 100-year extremes, derived with traditional extreme value approaches from the 1951-2000 simulations, underestimate the magnitude of these extreme events in the 2001-2100 projections by 30% for the drier areas of the Mediterranean (200-500 mm average annual rainfall) and by up to 20-30% for the wetter parts of the region. These 100-year extremes can occur at any time in any Mediterranean location. The contribution of the wettest day per year to the annual total precipitation is expected to increase (5-30%) throughout the region. The projected increase in extremes and the strong reductions in mean annual precipitation in the drier, southern and eastern Mediterranean will amplify the challenges for water resource management.

SUBMITTER: Zittis G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8686183 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:In being at the base of the marine food web, phytoplankton is particularly important for marine ecosystem functioning (e.g., biodiversity). Strong anthropization, over-exploitation of natural resources, and climate change affect the natural amount of phytoplankton and, therefore, represent a continuous threat to the biodiversity in marine waters. In particular, a concerning risks for coastal waters is the increase in nutrient inputs of terrestrial/anthropogenic origin that can lead to undesirable modifications of phytoplankton concentration (i.e., eutrophication). Monitoring chlorophyll (Chl) concentration, which is a proxy of phytoplankton biomass, is an efficient tool for recording and understanding the response of the marine ecosystem to human pressures and thus for detecting eutrophication. Here, we compute Chl trends over the Mediterranean Sea by using satellite data, also highlighting the fact that remote sensing may represent an efficient and reliable solution to synoptically control the "good environmental status" (i.e., the Marine Directive to achieve Good Environmental Status of EU marine waters by 2020) and to assess the application of international regulations and environmental directives. Our methodology includes the use of an ad hoc regional (i.e., Mediterranean) algorithm for Chl concentration retrieval, also accounting for the difference between offshore (i.e., Case I) and coastal (i.e., Case II) waters. We apply the Mann-Kendall test and the Sens's method for trend estimation to the Chl concentration de-seasonalized monthly time series, as obtained from the X-11 technique. We also provide a preliminary analysis of some particular trends by evaluating their associated inter-annual variability. The high spatial resolution of our approach allows a clear identification of intense trends in those coastal waters that are affected by river outflows. We do not attempt to attribute the observed trends to specific anthropogenic events. However, the trends that we document are consistent with the findings of several previous studies.

Dataset Information

Revisiting future extreme precipitation trends in the Mediterranean.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets