MIRA Climate Report 2015: about observed and future climate changes in Flanders and Belgium

Description

The central questions in this MIRA Climate Report 2015 are:

• 'To what extent is climate change already visible in Flanders and Belgium?’
• ‘What are the expectations for the future?’

An analysis of existing environmental indicators, supplemented with new indicators for drought and the urban heat island effect, provides the answer to the first question. Scenario analyses map out the bandwidth of the expectations for the future. They are based on the most recent scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations (IPCC). Furthermore, the report for the first time examines potential spatial differences in climate change within Flanders and surroundings. Attention is also paid to the potential effects of climate change for public health and water management. Finally, this report dwells on the threat of tipping points in our climate system, and on how to deal with the uncertainties that are inherently associated with the climate scenarios.

Reference information