I have found a really interesting web resource on the theme of climate change and its influence on small islands in the Pacific that I thought I would share. At www.pacificclimatefutures.net a web tool can be found which allows the user to explore the impact of climate change on fifteen different countries in the Pacific based on three different future emission scenarios. The data for this tool comes from eighteen different climate models over three different time periods, 2030, 2055 and 2090. The basic user interface available to everyone provides projected changes in annual temperature and rainfall. Without looking at the raw data an overview is provided which classifies future change into a number of groups such as “warmer and much wetter” or “warmer and drier” and provides the likelihood of each impact coming about by showing the number of climate models which predict a particular outcome.
An example of some of the read out from this website for the country of Nauru by 2030 under a medium emission scenario is shown below as well as showing the overall results for all models:
Most Likely Change Climate Future
"Warmer and Wetter to Much Wetter", represented by 12 of 18 models.
Annual mean air temperature increases of 0.9 °C and annual mean rainfall increases of 14% relative to 1981-2000
Least Change Climate Future
"Warmer and Little Change in Rainfall", represented by 3 of 18 models.
Annual mean air temperature increases of 0.8 °C and annual mean rainfall increases of 1% relative to 1981-2000
Other Potentially High Impact Climate Future
"Warmer and Much Drier", represented by 1 of 18 models. Annual mean air temperature increases of 0.6 °C and annual mean rainfall decreases of 18% relative to 1981-2000.
"Warmer and Much Wetter", represented by 6 of 18 models.
Annual mean air temperature increases of 1.1 °C and annual mean rainfall increases of 18% relative to 1981-2000.
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| Temperature and Rainfall changes relative 1980-1999. |
This website is definitely worth looking at as it really helps breakdown the impact that future climate will have on particular countries rather than providing rather general projections provided other very large areas.
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