Central and Eastern Europe Climate Change Impact and Vulnerability Assessment (CECILIA)

Description:

The main objective of CECILIA is to deliver a climate change impacts and vulnerability assessment in targeted areas of Central and Eastern Europe. Emphasis is given to applications of regional climate modelling studies at a resolution of 10 km for local impact studies in key sectors of the region. The project contains studies of hydrology, water quality, and water management (focusing at medium-sized river catchments and the Black Sea coast), air quality issues in urban areas (Black Triangle - a polluted region around the common borders of the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany), agriculture (crop yield, pests and diseases, carbon cycle), and forestry (management, carbon cycle). Very high resolution simulations over this region are necessary due to the presence of complex topographical and land use features. Climate change impacts on large urban and industrial areas modulated by topographical and land-use effects which can be resolved at the 10 km scale, are investigated by CECILIA. The high spatial and temporal resolution of dense national observational networks at high temporal resolution and of the CECILIA regional model experiments will uniquely feed into investigations of climate change consequences for weather extremes in the region under study. Comparison with the results based on statistical downscaling techniques will also be provided. Statistical downscaling methods for verification of the regional model results will be developed and applied, and assessments of their use in localization of model output for impact studies will be performed. These objectives will be achieved through the execution of the following specific tasks:

• To collect, assess and make available for first local impact studies the scenarios and climate simulations produced in previous relevant projects, especially PRUDENCE, STARTDEX, MICE and ENSEMBLES, where available.
• To adapt and develop very high resolution RCMs for the region (10 km grid spacing) and perform regional time-slice nested simulations driven by ERA40 data and by GCMs for selected GHG change scenarios.
• To verify the model results, compare RCM and statistical downscaling results, analyze and develop the methods for verification, particularly at local scales.
• To estimate the effect of global climate change on the occurrence of extreme events (heavy precipitation, heat waves, droughts) in the region, including the assessment of the added value of high-resolution experiments for the simulation of the relevant processes and feedbacks.
• To evaluate uncertainties in regional climate change projections using an intercomparison with results obtained in previous projects (PRUDENCE, ENSEMBLES) and the present ones.
• To assess (based on the high resolution downscaling results) the impacts of climate change on the hydrological cycle and water resources over selected catchments in the region; to study the effects of climate change on the Black Sea.
• To study (based on the high resolution downscaling results) the impacts of climate change on agriculture and forestry, carbon cycle and selected species.
• To study (based on the high resolution downscaling results) the impacts of climate change on health and air quality (photochemistry of air pollution, aerosols).

Project information

Lead

Univerzita Karlova v Praze (CZ)

Partners

Univerzita Karlova v Praze (CZ), Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (IT), Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques Meteo France (FR), Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut (DK), Aristotelio Panepistimio Thessalonikis (GR), Cesky hydrometeorologicky ustav (CZ), Ustav fyziky atmosfery AV CR (CZ), Eidgenoessische Technische Hochshule Zuerich (CH), BOKU – Universitaet fuer Bodenkultur Wien (AT), Administratia Nationala de Meteorologie (RO), National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BG), Institutul National de Hidrologie si Gospodarire a Apelor (RO), Orszagos Meteorologiai Szolgalat (HU), Narodne Lesnicke Centrum (SK), Politechnika Warszawska (PL), Eotvos Lorand Tudomanyegyetem (HU)

Source of funding

FP 6