1. CLIMATE CHANGE IN NUTSHELL János MIKA Hungarian Meteorological Service, Budapest Eszterházy Károly College, Eger, HUNGARY ATEE 2010,Budapest, ATEE 2010, Budapest, Apropos’ Climate Change Pre-Conference Workshop August 26, 2010

2. THREE ASPECTS, ONLY Why science states, climate change is mainly anthropogenic? Where should we stop the warming, and how? „AVOIDING THE UNMANAGEABLE”* How could we adapt to the changes? „MANAGING THE UNAVOIDABLE” * * 2007 February 27:

3. Our knowledge on the climate system and the external forcings describes the past! IPCC AR4, 2007 –simulation with (red) and without (blue) anthropogenic factors 1. SCIENCE

4. Stagnating integrated solar irradiation since 1960

5. Internal fluctuations rarely lead to long-term and rapid changes GCMs (IPCC, 2001)Paleoclimate reconstruction

6. What is forecasted ? (IPCC, 2007) Wide range of global mean temperature but warming in all scenarios. +0,5 o C even in case of constant atmospheric composition. Most likely: +1,4 - 4,2 o C, whole known uncertainty: 1,1 – 6,4 o C

7. Figure 1: Global CO 2 Emissions from Fossil Fuels Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009 (inofficial IPCC-supplement)

8. MITIGATION: AT LEAST TO AVOID CRITICAL JUMPS (‘’TIPPING POINTS’’) 2. MITIGATION

9. How to mitigate? (1) CO 2 = Population x (GDP/capita) x (TPES/GDP) x (CO 2 /TPES)

10. How to mitigate? (2) IPCC WG-III, 2007: Fig. 3.23 No single solution, all alternatives may contribute to the target.

11. 3. IMPACTS AND ADAPTATION

12. Rather variable impacts even within Europe

13. Changes in annual mean precipitation on the Lake Balaton watershed 1955 - 1984 1975 – 2004 (inc. 2000-2003))

14. OBSERVED TRENDS IN A GLOBALLY WARMING PERIOD Even the seemingly obvious trends are not uniform for the extremes!

15. Coping Range Current Climate Changed Climate What is worth doing: adjust the thresholds to expected changes of the mean, at least!

16. Conclusion: Anthropogenic origin of the recent global warming is very likely (i.e. >90 %, IPCC, 2007). No better news ocurred ever since (e.g. Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009). The warming should be as early as possible, but by all means before 3 K compared to the initial state to avoid unmanagable critical jumps. There are many opportunities for that but none of them is easy, cheap or surely more effective, than the other ones. Impacts of the changes vary regionally and the adaptation needs also regional research and planning. The extremes do not universally become more frequent, or rapid, but we must gradually adjust our concepts and thresholds and ways of using climate information to the ongoing changes.

17. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION! mika.j@met.hu