CLIME: Climate and lake impacts in Europe

• Forschungsstelle: EU FRP
• Projektnummer: 01.0589
• Projekttitel Englisch: CLIME: Climate and lake impacts in Europe

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

Economic Aspects; Environmental Protection; Information Processing; Information Systems

Alternative Projektnummern (Englisch)

EU project number: EVK1-CT-2002-00121

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.4a.1 Sustainable management and quality of water

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

See abstract

Abstract (Englisch)

Short summary:

A consortium of scientists and end-users from 10 countries intends to assess the direct and indirect effects of changes in the weather on the dynamics of lakes in northern, western and central Europe. Particular attention will be paid to water quality variables used as diagnostic elements in the water Framework Directive. The primary objective is to develop a suite of current as well as past changes in the weather. The models will be validated by historical data and perturbed by simulations of future variations in the weather. These simulations will be based on the output from an ensemble of Regional Climate Models and will be linked to socio-economic analyses of other costs and benefits of the predicted changes. One of the main outputs will be a Decision Support System that can be used to optimise the management of lakes in a warmer world.

Scientific objectives and approach:

In this project, we have brought together a consortium of scientists and end-users from ten countries to assess the direct and indirect effects of changes in the weather on the dynamics of lakes. The primary objective of the proposal is to develop a suite of benchmark models that can be used to simulate the responses of lakes to future as well as past changes in the weather. The models will be validated by using long-term observations collated from a number of sites and then perturbed by simulations of future changes in the weather. These simulations will be based on the output from an ensemble of Regional Climate Models (RCMs) and will be linked to socio-economic analyses of the costs and benefits of the predicted changes. The secondary objective of the project is to analyse the historical pattern of change observed in a network of lakes distributed throughout northern, western and central Europe. The sites included in CLIME cover a range of lake types that extend from the west of Ireland to northern Finland.

The proposed project is organised into four Thematic Programmes that are sub-divided into eleven Workpackages. In the first Thematic Programme (Regional Forcing), the climatologists in the consortium will use state-of-the-art RCMs and Monte Carlo simulations to produce the high-resolution scenarios required to drive the lake and catchment models. In the second Thematic Programme (Integrated Catchment-Lake Modelling) the limnologists in the consortium will establish a series of instrumented lakes and catchments, which will then be used to test the benchmark models. The lake models will include procedures that simulate the formation and break-up of ice, thermal stratification, wind-induced mixing, the recycling of nutrients and the growth of phytoplankton. The catchment models will be designed to simulate the delivery and internal dynamics of phosphate, nitrate and dissolved organic carbon. In the third Thematic Programme (Regional Coherence) members of the consortium will quantify the factors influencing the synchronous behaviour of lakes in the three European regions. The network of Automatic Water Quality Monitoring Stations established in an earlier project will be upgraded and new low-maintenance stations installed at selected sites in the UK, Finland, Sweden, Austria and Hungary.

Problems to be solved:

If present trends continue, limnologists believe that changes in the weather will have a major effect on the dynamics of lakes throughout Europe. Typical climate-related problems include increases in lake productivity, increases in water colour and the increased frequency and severity of algal blooms. The methods currently used to monitor and model lakes were developed when weather patterns were different from those experienced today. Most are based on a deterministic rather than a probabilistic approach and do not properly represent the 'cascade of uncertainty' associated with recent climate-change simulations. Many water quality problems that were once assumed to be driven by the local weather are now known to be influenced by climatic events that operate on a global scale. In Europe, the most important effects are those associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation and the north-south movements of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. An understanding of these 'teleconnections' has important consequences for the management of lakes and the implementation of the new Water Framework Directive.

Expected Impacts:

In the fourth Thematic Programme (Regional Impact Assessments) the specialists in the consortium will pool their resources to develop a decision support system that can be used to inform end-users and policy makers in the Member States. This system will be based on the results produced by the primary Thematic Programmes and a series of climate-related socio-economic studies. Particular attention will be paid to those factors that increase the cost of treating water and those that impair the public use of freshwater resources. The most novel feature of these impact assessments will be the use of 'probabilistic' methods to quantify risk and to estimate the increased costs of managing water in a warmer world. The decision support software will be based on Bayesian logic and will be designed in such a way as to be readily accessible to non-specialist users.

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 01.0589