Causes of future Mediterranean precipitation decline depend on the season
Future mean precipitation in the Mediterranean is projected to decrease year-round in response to global warming, threatening to aggravate water stress in the region, which can cause social and economic difficulties. We investigate possible causes of the Mediterranean drying in regional climate simu...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2019-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab4438 |
| _version_ | 1797748010602463232 |
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| author | Roman Brogli Silje Lund Sørland Nico Kröner Christoph Schär |
| author_facet | Roman Brogli Silje Lund Sørland Nico Kröner Christoph Schär |
| author_sort | Roman Brogli |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Future mean precipitation in the Mediterranean is projected to decrease year-round in response to global warming, threatening to aggravate water stress in the region, which can cause social and economic difficulties. We investigate possible causes of the Mediterranean drying in regional climate simulations. To test the influence of multiple large-scale drivers on the drying, we sequentially add them to the simulations. We find that the causes of the Mediterranean drying depend on the season. The summer drying results from the land-ocean warming contrast, and from lapse-rate and other thermodynamic changes, but only weakly depends on circulation changes. In contrast, to reproduce the simulated Mediterranean winter drying, additional changes in the circulation and atmospheric state have to be represented in the simulations. Since land-ocean contrast, thermodynamic and lapse-rate changes are more robust in climate simulations than circulation changes, the uncertainty associated with the projected drying should be considered smaller in summer than in winter. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:58:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-92caa2b77a164d70a9eeeb61b3fe7140 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:58:48Z |
| publishDate | 2019-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-92caa2b77a164d70a9eeeb61b3fe71402023-08-09T14:44:08ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262019-01-01141111401710.1088/1748-9326/ab4438Causes of future Mediterranean precipitation decline depend on the seasonRoman Brogli0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4232-8800Silje Lund Sørland1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1537-0851Nico Kröner2Christoph Schär3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4171-1613Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 16 , 8092 Zurich, SwitzerlandInstitute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 16 , 8092 Zurich, SwitzerlandInstitute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 16 , 8092 Zurich, SwitzerlandInstitute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 16 , 8092 Zurich, SwitzerlandFuture mean precipitation in the Mediterranean is projected to decrease year-round in response to global warming, threatening to aggravate water stress in the region, which can cause social and economic difficulties. We investigate possible causes of the Mediterranean drying in regional climate simulations. To test the influence of multiple large-scale drivers on the drying, we sequentially add them to the simulations. We find that the causes of the Mediterranean drying depend on the season. The summer drying results from the land-ocean warming contrast, and from lapse-rate and other thermodynamic changes, but only weakly depends on circulation changes. In contrast, to reproduce the simulated Mediterranean winter drying, additional changes in the circulation and atmospheric state have to be represented in the simulations. Since land-ocean contrast, thermodynamic and lapse-rate changes are more robust in climate simulations than circulation changes, the uncertainty associated with the projected drying should be considered smaller in summer than in winter.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab4438pseudo-global warmingsubtropical precipitation declineEuropean regional climate modelingclimate change driverswater stressland-ocean contrast |
| spellingShingle | Roman Brogli Silje Lund Sørland Nico Kröner Christoph Schär Causes of future Mediterranean precipitation decline depend on the season Environmental Research Letters pseudo-global warming subtropical precipitation decline European regional climate modeling climate change drivers water stress land-ocean contrast |
| title | Causes of future Mediterranean precipitation decline depend on the season |
| title_full | Causes of future Mediterranean precipitation decline depend on the season |
| title_fullStr | Causes of future Mediterranean precipitation decline depend on the season |
| title_full_unstemmed | Causes of future Mediterranean precipitation decline depend on the season |
| title_short | Causes of future Mediterranean precipitation decline depend on the season |
| title_sort | causes of future mediterranean precipitation decline depend on the season |
| topic | pseudo-global warming subtropical precipitation decline European regional climate modeling climate change drivers water stress land-ocean contrast |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab4438 |
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