Overview

Climate change will have major impacts on the Earth's hydrologic cycle. As greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, precipitation-which includes rain, snow, sleet and hail-will increase on average by 2% per each degree centigrade of additional warming. Yet, this average hides large differences across space. Higher precipitation is indeed expected over most of the world's continents, but in a few regions, climate models project robust declines. Among these, the Mediterranean stands out as a result of the magnitude and significance of its expected precipitation decline. Locally, up to 40% of annual precipitation could vanish. The decline is confined to the southern half of the basin during winter, but extends northwards during spring and summer. This is especially worrying as the region is already water-stressed. Droughts and wildfires are increasingly frequent all around the Mediterranean coastline. Any future decline in precipitation will set strong limits on water resources that will constrain the ability of the region to develop and grow food, affecting millions of people and threatening the stability of this tense and complex area. This book brings together research that explains why the Mediterranean region is a climate change hot spot and how climate projections translate at the regional scale.

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9781734069679

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