| Abk. | DATAPHEN |
| Themenbereich | Direct ATtribution of the Anthropogenic climate signal to PHENological observations |
| Status | ongoing |
| Zusammenfassung | 
(Foto: Jörg Hempel) |
During the last 100 years the global mean temperature increased by about 0.8°C. Attribution analyses suggest that the global pattern of warming during the past half century is very likely caused by human-induced greenhouse gas forcing. This work applies the direct attribution method via an end-to-end modelling system to quantitatively link anthropogenic forcing with the observed shift of phenological entry dates. |
| Ausgangssituation | The global mean temperature has risen by 0.74°C +-0.18°C over the last 100 years (1906 – 2005). Observed responses to that temperature increase are found across a wide range of systems as well as regions. The shift of the phenological entry dates to earlier occurrences appears consistent with temperature increases over the same time period in the same region. One might be interested in testing the hypothesis that the increasing temperatures and the consistent reaction of the biological systems have both the same underlying cause, the human-induced increase of greenhouse gas concentrations. To formally link cause and effect, two concepts, called detection and attribution, have been created. A statistical analysis is required and the careful assessment of the evidence to demonstrate that the observed changes in both the climate and the natural system:
- are unlikely to be entirely due to natural variability alone,
- consistent with the estimated responses of either physical or biological systems to a given regional climate change and
- not consistent with alternative, physically plausible explanations of observed change that exclude regional climate change.
The method of direct attribution requires an 'end-to-end' modelling system that includes explicit representations of all of the main processes (climatic and non-climatic) that contribute to the variability of the system under study. The output of such a modelling system can then directly be compared with observed changes in natural systems. |
| Projektziele | The overall objective of this project is the application of the above described direct attribution approach to identify the anthropogenic impact on the observed shift of phenological events in Central Europe to earlier entry dates. The regional climate model CCLM will be nested in GCM control runs over central Europe, which were driven under various combinations of natural and anthropogenic forcings. By comparing observations with model results the anthropogenic impact on phenology in Central Europe will be quantified. |
| Methodik |
- Collect observed temperature and pheno time series in netCDF file systems.
- Prepare a FTN90 module, which is able to run a phenological model with various observed and modelled temperature data sets.
- Do the dynamical downscaling runs by nesting of the regional climate model CCLM into GCM control runs with natural and anthropogenic forcings.
- Apply detection and attribution methods to describe the impact of the anthropogenic forcing factor on temperature and phenology in Europe.
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| Abwicklung | 24 months, 2010 - 2011 |
| Ergebnisse | The analysis of the small climate model ensemble is expected to provide insight into the impact of the anthropogenic climate forcing on the trends of temperature and phenological entry dates in Europe over the last 50 years. |
| Projektteam |
| Ansprechpartner |
Abteilung |
Fachgebiet |
E-Mail |
Telefon | | Scheifinger Helfried Dr. | ZAMG Wien/UMW | Global Atmosphere Watch |  | +43 1 36026 2410 | | Matulla Christoph Dr. | ZAMG Wien/KLI | Klimavariabilität und Modellierung | | +43 1 36026 2217 | | Zuvela-Aloise Maja Dipl.-Ing. Dr. | ZAMG Wien/KLI | Klimavariabilität und Modellierung | | +43 1 36026 2218 | | Koch Elisabeth Dr. | ZAMG Wien/KLI | Klimavariabilität | | +43 1 36026 2201 | | Thomas Schöngaßner Mag. | ZAMG Wien/UMW | Umwelt/Klima | | +43 1 36026 2410 | |
| Finanzierung | ACRP Climate and Energy Fund of the Federal State – managed by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency and Kommunalkredit Public Consulting GmbH |
| Website |  Klimafonds  |
