PESETA - Projection of Economic impacts of climate change in Sectors of the European Union based on bottom-up Analysis | Umweltbundesamt

The climate data is being transferred from the European research project PRUDENCE. Global, large scale climate scenarios and the emission scenarios A2 and B2 from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are being used. For the time horizon 2011-2040, the RCA3 regional climate model (from the Rossby Centre - SMHI) is being used with the general conditions from the global ECHAM4 model, based on scenario A2. For the time horizon 2071-2100, the two regional climate models HIRHAM (from the Danish Meteorological Institute - DMI) and RCAO (from the SMHI) and the two global models ECHAM4, which is linked to the OPYC3 ocean model, and HadAM3H, which is linked to the HadCM3 model in terms of sea surface temperatures, are being used. Temperature increase for emission scenario A2 by 2071-2100 +3°C and for emission scenario B2 +2.2°C.

2011-2040 and 2071-2100 compared to 1961-1990

Climate effects for agriculture are changed yields, which could fall by more than 10% for Southern and Western Europe and by between 0 and 5% for Central and North East Europe, depending on the model and scenario used, while an increase of more than 15% is possible for Northern Europe.

For tourism, climate effects could lead to changed trends and attractiveness of tourist destination areas. Climatic suitability for summer tourism can be expressed using the "Tourism Climate Index" (TCI), which includes climatic factors such as temperature, humidity, hours of sunshine, rain and wind. Suitability for summer tourism is decreasing, particularly in Southern Europe, while it is slightly increasing in Northern Europe. Attractiveness in spring and autumn is increasing everywhere.

Climate effects in the area of human health occur due to changed death rates, which could increase in summer (particularly in Southern Europe) and decrease in winter (particularly in Eastern Europe).

For the 100 year flow of major European rivers, in terms of climate effects it can be established that in large parts of Europe the frequency of extreme flows is increasing, but is also decreasing in some areas (particularly North East Europe).

For coastal zones, climate effects particularly arise due to rising sea levels, which can result in flood damage, loss of wetlands, greater erosion, salinisation of groundwater and rising water inland water levels. Direct damage, as well as flood areas and erosion mechanisms, are simulated using the DIVA model developed in the DINAS-COAST project. Without adaptation measures, levels of damage could rise sharply.

Policy relevant time horizon is the 2020s. The project is also studying the 2080s.