Irrigation and hydrometeorological extremes
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Irrigation and hydrometeorological extremes Philipp de Vrese1 · Tobias Stacke2 Received: 11 March 2019 / Accepted: 13 June 2020 / Published online: 29 June 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In the present study, the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology’s Earth System Model is used to investigate irrigation’s general effect on severe and extreme hydrometeorological regimes. Our idealized simulations show a large potential to modulate the magnitude and occurrence frequency of severe and extreme precipitation rates, indicating the possibility to mitigate some of the detrimental effects of future climate change, but also a substantial risk due to the declining water availability in drying regions. Irrigation almost exclusively reduces the magnitude and occurrence frequency of severely and extremely dry conditions and has the potential to counter the drying trends that result from the 21st century increase in greenhouse gas concentrations—according to the RCP4.5 scenario. At the same time, irrigation does not only have a mitigating effect, as it increases the occurrence frequency and intensity of severely wet conditions in many regions. The study aims at irrigation’s theoretical (maximum) impact and investigates a highly idealized trajectory in which global irrigation is being maximized within hydrologically sustainable limits. However, even for this scenario, we find large regions in which present-day water extractions are not sustainable as they often rely on exhaustible sources. Especially, a depletion of non-renewable ground water in South Asia would lead to a strong reduction in irrigation and, consequently, a substantial increase in the occurrence frequency of severely and extremely dry months throughout the region. Keywords Hydrometeorological extremes · Irrigation · Climate change
1 Introduction The 2018 IPCC report on a global warming of 1.5◦ C (IPCC 2018) made one thing abundantly clear: An increase in global mean temperature of this magnitude would already raise the climate-related risk to human systems, which is partly the result of an amplification of climate and weather extremes. Most likely, there would be an increase in hot extremes in most inhabited areas and, likely, regional increases in the occurrence frequency of heavy precipitation Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05337-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Philipp de Vrese philipp.de‑[email protected] Tobias Stacke [email protected] 1
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstraße 53, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Max‑Planck‑Strasse 1, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany
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and droughts. Just as concerning, the report indicates that it will require an enormous, global effort to limit CO2 emissions to a level that maintains the temperature rise below 1.5◦ C , relative to pre-industrial levels, requiring zeroemissions by the middle of this century. If this cannot be achieved, global mean temperature wil
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