Simon Gosling | University of Nottingham (original) (raw)

Papers by Simon Gosling

Environmental Research Letters, 2017

We performed an intercomparison of river discharge regulated by dams under four meteorological fo... more We performed an intercomparison of river discharge regulated by dams under four meteorological forcings among five global hydrological models for a historical period by simulation. This is the first global multimodel intercomparison study on dam-regulated river flow. Although the simulations were conducted globally, the Missouri-Mississippi and Green-Colorado Rivers were chosen as case-study sites in this study. The hydrological models incorporate generic schemes of dam operation, not specific to a certain dam. We examined river discharge on a longitudinal section of river channels to investigate the effects of dams on simulated discharge, especially at the seasonal time scale. We found that the magnitude of dam regulation differed considerably among the hydrological models. The difference was attributable not only to dam operation schemes but also to the magnitude of simulated river discharge flowing into dams. That is, although a similar algorithm of dam operation schemes was incorporated in different hydrological models, the magnitude of dam regulation substantially differed among the models. Intermodel discrepancies tended to decrease toward the lower reaches of these river basins, which means model dependence is less significant toward lower reaches. These case-study results imply that, intermodel comparisons of river discharge should be made at different locations along the river's course to critically examine the performance of hydrological models because the performance can vary with the locations.

... Warren, R. and Arnell, N. and Berry, P. and Brown, S. and Dicks, L. and Gosling, S. and Hanki... more ... Warren, R. and Arnell, N. and Berry, P. and Brown, S. and Dicks, L. and Gosling, S. and Hankin, R. and Hope, C. and Lowe, J. and Matsumoto, K. and Masui, T. and Nicholls, R. and O&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;Hanley, J. and Osborn, T. and Scrieucru, S. (2010) The Economics and Climate Change ...

Water

Blue-Green infrastructure (BGI) is recognised internationally as an approach for managing urban w... more Blue-Green infrastructure (BGI) is recognised internationally as an approach for managing urban water challenges while enhancing society and the environment through the provision of multiple co-benefits. This research employed an online survey to investigate the perceptions of BGI held by professional stakeholders in four cities with established BGI programs: Newcastle (UK), Ningbo (China), Portland (Oregon USA), and Rotterdam (The Netherlands) (64 respondents). The results show that challenges associated with having too much water (e.g., pluvial and fluvial flood risk, water quality deterioration) are driving urban water management agendas. Perceptions of governance drivers for BGI implementation, BGI leaders, and strategies for improving BGI uptake, are markedly different in the four cities reflecting the varied local, regional and national responsibilities for BGI implementation. In addition to managing urban water, BGI is universally valued for its positive impact on residents’ ...

Environmental Health Perspectives

BACKGROUND: Multiple methods are employed for modeling adaptation when projecting the impact of c... more BACKGROUND: Multiple methods are employed for modeling adaptation when projecting the impact of climate change on heat-related mortality. The sensitivity of impacts to each is unknown because they have never been systematically compared. In addition, little is known about the relative sensitivity of impacts to "adaptation uncertainty" (i.e., the inclusion/exclusion of adaptation modeling) relative to using multiple climate models and emissions scenarios. OBJECTIVES: This study had three aims: a) Compare the range in projected impacts that arises from using different adaptation modeling methods; b) compare the range in impacts that arises from adaptation uncertainty with ranges from using multiple climate models and emissions scenarios; c) recommend modeling method(s) to use in future impact assessments. METHODS: We estimated impacts for 2070-2099 for 14 European cities, applying six different methods for modeling adaptation; we also estimated impacts with five climate models run under two emissions scenarios to explore the relative effects of climate modeling and emissions uncertainty. RESULTS: The range of the difference (percent) in impacts between including and excluding adaptation, irrespective of climate modeling and emissions uncertainty, can be as low as 28% with one method and up to 103% with another (mean across 14 cities). In 13 of 14 cities, the ranges in projected impacts due to adaptation uncertainty are larger than those associated with climate modeling and emissions uncertainty. CONCLUSIONS: Researchers should carefully consider how to model adaptation because it is a source of uncertainty that can be greater than the uncertainty in emissions and climate modeling. We recommend absolute threshold shifts and reductions in slope.

International Journal of Biometeorology

This is the second Special Issue published in International Journal of Biometeorology that is dev... more This is the second Special Issue published in International Journal of Biometeorology that is devoted to presenting research conducted by members of the Students and New Professionals (SNP) group of the International Society of Biometeorology (ISB). The first SNP Special Issue was published in 2014 (Gosling 2014), following a meeting 3 years earlier at the 19th International Congress of Biometeorology (ICB) in Auckland, New Zealand, at which several members of the SNP identified potential articles to include in a Special Issue. That issue included 17 articles and to date, it has attracted over 300 citations (according to Google Scholar). The first Special Issue was a springboard for a number of research activities initiated by the SNP, including the development of an online interactive glossary of biometeorological terms that stemmed from the first glossary for Biometeorology that appeared in the issue (Gosling et al. 2014), and the organisation of a workshop on the Spatial Synoptic Classification (SSC) in Vindeln, Sweden. The latter followed a review presented by Hondula et al. (2014) that identified novel opportunities for the application of the SSC to new regions of the globe, and it has resulted in a comprehensive review of the role of the SSC in interdisciplinary research (Dixon et al. 2016). On the back of the successful first Special Issue, submissions to a second Special Issue were solicited at the 20th ICB in 2014, in Cleveland, U.S. The issue includes 11 research articles that cover many of the topics central to the field of Biometeorology, including animals, air pollution, climate and health and tourism. Furthermore, the articles mirror the SNP's efforts to enhance the equality and diversity of its membership, with lead authors representing institutions from Australia,

The impact of climate change on agriculture depends on the environmental and socioeconomic contex... more The impact of climate change on agriculture depends on the environmental and socioeconomic contexts in which the changes occur. However, current tools to anticipate climate change impacts focus almost entirely on biological and environmental processes. For example, most large-scale crop models can identify where yields are sensitive to new temperatures and CO 2 concentrations but do not include any socioeconomic factors that may enable (or inhibit) farmers' abilities to adapt. To address this gap, this paper uses national scale socioeconomic , meteorological and agricultural data to identify socioeconomic factors that have made rice, maize and wheat production resilient and sensitive to past droughts. Results suggest that cereal harvests in countries undergoing economic and political transition are most vulnerable to droughts and that factors related to investments in the agriculture sector (such as the amount of fertilizer used by farmers or the amount of Gross Domestic Product produced by a nation's agricultural sector) help reduce vulnerability. While results are limited by data quality and availability, this study provides preliminary quantitative insights that highlight important areas for further research on the socioeconomic factors that create vulnerability to climate change.

Journal of Hydrology, Apr 1, 2013

ABSTRACT This paper presents an assessment of the impacts of climate change on a series of indica... more ABSTRACT This paper presents an assessment of the impacts of climate change on a series of indicators of hydrological regimes across the global domain, using a global hydrological model run with climate scenarios constructed using pattern-scaling from 21 CMIP3 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3) climate models. Changes are compared with natural variability, with a significant change being defined as greater than the standard deviation of the hydrological indicator in the absence of climate change. Under an SRES (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios) A1b emissions scenario, substantial proportions of the land surface (excluding Greenland and Antarctica) would experience significant changes in hydrological behaviour by 2050; under one climate model scenario (Hadley Centre HadCM3), average annual runoff increases significantly over 47% of the land surface and decreases over 36%; only 17% therefore sees no significant change. There is considerable variability between regions, depending largely on projected changes in precipitation. Uncertainty in projected river flow regimes is dominated by variation in the spatial patterns of climate change between climate models (hydrological model uncertainty is not included). There is, however, a strong degree of consistency in the overall magnitude and direction of change. More than two-thirds of climate models project a significant increase in average annual runoff across almost a quarter of the land surface, and a significant decrease over 14%, with considerably higher degrees of consistency in some regions. Most climate models project increases in runoff in Canada and high-latitude eastern Europe and Siberia, and decreases in runoff in central Europe, around the Mediterranean, the Mashriq, central America and Brasil. There is some evidence that project change in runoff at the regional scale is not linear with change in global average temperature change. The effects of uncertainty in the rate of future emissions is relatively small.

Food Security, Mar 6, 2012

The socioeconomics of food crop production and climate change vulnerability: a global scale quant... more The socioeconomics of food crop production and climate change vulnerability: a global scale quantitative analysis of how grain crops are sensitive to drought

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014

Journal of Hydrology, 2013

Hydrological model-related uncertainty is often ignored within climate change hydrological impact... more Hydrological model-related uncertainty is often ignored within climate change hydrological impact assessments. A MIKE SHE model is developed for the Mekong using the same data as an earlier semi-distributed, conceptual model (SLURP). The model is calibrated and validated using discharge at 12 gauging stations. Two sets of climate change scenarios are investigated. The first is based on a 2 °C increase in global mean temperature (the hypothesised threshold of 'dangerous' climate change), as simulated by seven GCMs. There are considerable differences in scenario discharge between GCMs, ranging from catchment-wide increases in mean discharge (up to 12.7%; CCCMA CGCM31, NCAR CCSM30), decreases (up to 21.6% in the upper catchments; CSIRO Mk30, IPSL CM4), and spatially varying responses (UKMO HadCM3 and HadGEM1, MPI ECHAM5). Inter-GCM differences are largely driven by differences in precipitation. The second scenario set (HadCM3, increases in global mean temperature of 1-6 °C) shows consistently greater discharge (maximum: 28.7%) in the upper catchment as global temperature increases, primarily due to increasing precipitation. Further downstream, discharge is strongly influenced by increasing PET, which outweighs impacts of elevated upstream precipitation and causes consistent discharge reductions for higher temperatures (maximum:-5.3% for the main Mekong). MIKE SHE results for all scenarios are compared with those from the SLURP catchment model and the Mac-PDM.09 global hydrological model. Although hydrological model-related uncertainty is evident, its magnitude is smaller than that associated with choice of GCM. In most cases, the three hydrological models simulate the same direction of change in mean discharge. Mac-PDM.09 simulates the largest discharge increases when they occur, which is responsible for some differences in direction of change at downstream gauging stations for some scenarios, especially HadCM3. Inter-hydrological model differences are likely attributed to alternative model structures, process representations and PET methods (Linacre for MIKE SHE and SLURP, Penman-Monteith for Mac-PDM.09).

Climatic Change, 2014

This paper presents an assessment of the implications of climate change for global river flood ri... more This paper presents an assessment of the implications of climate change for global river flood risk. It is based on the estimation of flood frequency relationships at a grid resolution of 0.5×0.5°, using a global hydrological model with climate scenarios derived from 21 climate models, together with projections of future population. Four indicators of the flood hazard are calculated; change in the magnitude and return period of flood peaks, flood-prone population and cropland exposed to substantial change in flood frequency, and a generalised measure of regional flood risk based on combining frequency curves with generic flood damage functions. Under one climate model, emissions and socioeconomic scenario (HadCM3 and SRES A1b), in 2050 the current 100-year flood would occur at least twice as frequently across 40 % of the globe, approximately 450 million flood-prone people and 430 thousand km 2 of flood-prone cropland would be exposed to a doubling of flood frequency, and global flood risk would increase by approximately 187 % over the risk in 2050 in the absence of climate change. There is strong regional variability (most adverse impacts would be in Asia), and considerable variability between climate models. In 2050, the range in increased exposure across 21 climate models under SRES A1b is 31-450 million people and 59 to 430 thousand km 2 of cropland, and the change in risk varies between −9 and +376 %. The paper presents impacts by region, and also presents relationships between change in global mean surface temperature and impacts on the global flood hazard. There are a number of caveats with the analysis; it is based on one global hydrological model only, the climate scenarios are constructed using pattern-scaling, and the precise impacts are sensitive to some of the assumptions in the definition and application. 1 Introduction One of the most frequently cited impacts of future climate change is a potential increase in the river flood hazard. There have, however, been very few assessments of changing flood hazard Climatic Change

Executive summary Climate change is likely to have serious and significant impacts on human popul... more Executive summary Climate change is likely to have serious and significant impacts on human population health. The mechanisms by which climate change may affect health are becoming better understood. Current quantitative methods of estimating future health impacts rely on disease-specific models that primarily describe relationships between mean values of weather variables and health outcomes and do not address the impacts of extreme events or weather disasters. Extreme events have the potential to disrupt community ...

Sustainable Cities and Society, 2015