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Stanisław Małek, Anita Bokwa, Andrzej Bytnerowicz
Research Strategy for Carpathians 2015-2020: Climate change
The state of the art
Climate change is one of the most important environmental challenges that the global
society has to face. Main issues and challenges concern the extent and spatial
patterns of the changes observed, improvement of modelling tools and decreasing
the uncertainty of predictions, mainly by downscaling the climatic models and
verification of the results obtained.
Climate change, and in particular changes in air temperature and precipitation, are
closely linked to changes in other elements of the natural environment and to
changes in many sectors of economy. Probably the most important issues
concerning the consequences of climate change, specific to the Carpathians, are
biodiversity (including potential effects on forest health), water supply and
deteriorating conditions for recreational winter sports, especially skiing
(http://137.224.11.82/web/guest/tourism).
In 2014, the Fifth Assessment Report of IPCC has been published (http://ipcc.ch/)
and in the years 2010-2013, the CARPATCLIM project has been realized
(http://www.carpatclim-eu.org/pages/home/). The outcomes of both those initiatives
present the current findings concerning climate change. The CARPATCLIM results
show the climatic issues in the scale of the whole Carpathian chain. For example,
regarding precipitation, no relevant significant trend in the Carpathians in the period
1961–2010 was found, though the last decades showed a small increase versus the
1980s, the driest decade analyzed. Minimum and maximum air temperature
significantly increased in the Carpathian Region in the period 1961–2010, but t max
increased more than t min, especially in spring and summer, with a larger rise in the
last 30 years. On an annual basis, in the period 1981–2010, t min increased by
0.44∘C per decade, t max by 0.59∘C per decade, and mean temperature by 0.51∘C
per decade. If such an increase persists to the end of the 21st century, the
Carpathians could experience a temperature rise of 4–6∘C compared to the average
of the period 1961–2010, which may cause devastating effects on the biosphere.
Within the CARPATCLIM project, a gridded data sets were completed, for various
meteorological elements, and made accessible for the public. However, the original
data from meteorological stations for the whole Carpathian region are still not
accessible, neither for the research institutions, nor for other parties interested.
Apart from the large-scale activities, regional climatic studies were also realized. For
example, in the Slovak Carpathians, an increase of average annual temperature by
~1.1°C was observed in the 20th century, accompanied by the decrease of annual
precipitation by ~5.6%. However, in the southern Slovakia, total precipitation
decreased of more than 10% while in the north and north-east part it increased of up
to 3% (Tibor Priwitzer and Hana Pavlendowa, personal communication, 2014). In
2015, a monograph “Climate of the Romanian Carpathians” was published (D.M.
Micu, A. Dumitrescu, S. Cheval, M.-V. Birsan, Springer Atmospheric Sciences).
In the years 2011-2013, the CarpathCC project was accomplished
(http://carpathcc.eu/) and in the period 2010-2013 the CARPIVIA project was
completed (http://www.carpivia.eu/). The outcomes of those two projects present the
interactions and impacts of climate change on particular economic sectors, together
with the proposals of political solutions. In the IPCC report, those issues are also
discussed but in the scale of the whole European continent.
In July 2014, “Strategic agenda on adaptation to climate change in the Carpathian
region” has been developed by the Working Group on Adaptation to Climate Change
under the Carpathian Convention. It holds recommendations for policy development,
institutional change and ecosystem based adaptation measures.
Further steps
The research issues in global and continental scale remain the same as described
above, but more local research is needed. The general findings in the large scales
are of limited applicability in concrete, local actions.
Common international projects realized by research institutions from the Carpathian
countries should be established. They should concentrate on observed and
predicted impacts of climate change on specific economic sectors in a local scale. So
far many institutions from non-Carpathian countries were involved in various
Carpathian projects and some results obtained seem to be of limited innovative value
and applicability for specific Carpathian communities. For the international projects
mentioned, a common data base from the well-coordinated monitoring on a network
of original meteorological stations in the Carpathian region is needed. There is also a
need for more local/national initiatives aimed to transfer the scientific information to
the society, in order to rise and improve the public awareness concerning the
environmental changes, including climate change, in the Carpathian region.