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Sonia Jerez Rodríguez, José María López Romero, Pedro Jiménez Guerrero and Juan Pedro Montávez Gómez, researchers from the MAR group of the Department of Physics of the University of Murcia (UMU), lead a study on the impact of including or not greenhouse gases (GHG) in long-term regional climate predictions.
Experts warn that this practice is not being regulated or documented when generating and providing climate simulations carried out with high spatial resolution models.
"We were surprised to discover that some large work groups did not consider them," says the expert.
The scientists emphasize that it is a practical problem, of coordination between climate modeling groups, about which there is no scientific debate.
Sonia Jerez emphasizes that "at the global level it is very studied and nobody discusses the importance of GHGs in the behavior of the climate system, however, at a regional level, its impact has not been determined to date", the researcher stresses.
Not taking into account GHGs and their increase in the atmosphere provides erroneous climate information and affects studies on agriculture, fire or hydrology.
In this sense, including or not GHGs has an impact of up to more than one degree of difference in the regional projections for the average temperature.
The researcher clarifies that "this variation supposes doubling the signs of warming at the local level and could also modify the projections made for precipitation or extremes of temperature that will be reached by the middle of the century".
José María López Romero illustrates that the difficulty in implementing the effect of the evolution of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere in climate models is that "some come by default with constant concentrations, since they are designed for meteorological applications. to start at the base and get into their guts, but it's very long and complex computer codes. "
However, in recent years they have become quite accessible due to the improvement of their graphical interface and the increase of computational resources available to the scientific community.
Both co-authors comment that anyone with a certain skill in the handling of tools and computer supports can use them as black boxes, without the need of a deep knowledge of the physical-chemical mechanisms that govern the atmosphere and the climate system.
Despite the difficulty that may be involved, Jerez Rodríguez claims that it is essential to devote the necessary time in the design of climate change simulations to ensure their correctness, veracity and scientific-technical rigor.
Climate models are mathematical algorithms that implement equations of physics and chemistry to explain the behavior, evolution and interactions of the climate system.
For the analysis, simulations of the past and the future have been carried out, activating and deactivating the effect of the GHG, and using different physical configurations of the models.
In particular, these gases modify the radiative balance: they trap part of the radiation that the Earth emits back into space.
This produces a warming on the surface, which is known as the greenhouse effect, which in recent decades has been intensified by human activity.
"We sent the article to the magazine Nature Communications with an analysis of 300 simulated years and they gave it back asking for 360 more, and with this we have been able to better corroborate the message, which appeals to the entire community of regional climate modelers," states López Romero.
The study was carried out in collaboration with Marco Turco of the University of Barcelona (UB) and Robert Vautard of the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences (LSCE) of France.
Source: Universidad de Murcia
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