Climate Research

Significance Around the globe, climate warming is increasing the dominance of warm-adapted species—a process described as “thermophilization.” However, thermophilization often lags behind warming of the climate itself, with some recent studies showing no response at all. Using a unique database of more than 1,400 resurveyed vegetation plots in forests across Europe and North America, we document significant thermophilization of understory vegetation. However, the response to macroclimate warming was attenuated in forests whose canopies have become denser. This microclimatic effect likely reflects cooler forest-floor temperatures via increased shading during the growing season in denser forests. Because standing stocks of trees have increased in many temperate forests in recent decades, microclimate may commonly buffer understory plant responses to macroclimate warming.

Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) were key to reaching the Paris Agreement and will be instrumental in implementing it. Research was quick to identify the 'headline numbers' of NDCs: if these climate action plans were fully implemented, global mean warming by 2100 would be reduced from approximately 3.6 to 2.7°C above pre-industrial levels (Höhne et al.

Global warming will continue, and the Arctic is expected to warm at twice the global average rate (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007). The most pronounced changes will occur during winter with increased precipitation, more precipitation falling as rain, and a shorter snow period (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007; Roderfeld et al. 2008). These changes will have far-reaching consequences for ecosystems and for the people dependent on their services and may serve as an indicator of environmental change and an ''early warning system'' for other parts of the world (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, Symon et al. 2005). We assessed the likely changes in the provision of goods and services from natural and seminatural ecosystems (i.e., excluding urban, industrial, and agricultural land) in the Barents region-the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and northwestern Russia-as a consequence of anticipated climate changes during the twenty-first century. This region includes approximately six million people in an area the size of France, Portugal, Spain, and Germany together, totaling 1.75 million km 2 ; 75% of the territory and population is Russian. Several indigenous peoples and minority groups, such as the Sami, Nenets, Vepsians, and Komi, live in the region (Barents Information Service 2008). Globally, the Barents region is the Arctic region that is the most geographically complex with the most infrastructure and great cultural, social, and political heterogeneity. Its economy depends heavily upon the extraction of natural resources (Barents Information Service 2008). We foresee that many provisioning ecosystem services, including forestry, hunting, fishing, and gathering, will improve as a result of, for example, the higher survival and reproduction of the populations of many species, whereas other services will deteriorate due to habitat loss, invasion of nonnative species, and altered species interactions (Chapin et al. 2006). Regulating services, such as water cycling, will also change, with a predicted increase in discharge, leading to the potential production of more hydroelectricity (Lehner et al. 2005). Human societies should be able to cope with most of these changes by This synopsis was not peer reviewed.

enhancing alignment and harnessing synergies among decision-making areas requires institutional coordination, multi-stakeholder engagement and the development of governance structures that bridge different ministries, types of knowledge, sectors and stakeholder groups {8 .4 .2, 8 .4 .3}. Effective responses to land degradation can simultaneously contribute towards multilateral environmental agreements and goals including the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Ramsar Convention and climate change-related agreements such as the Paris Agreement and REDD+ (well established). Taking a multi-level approach towards preventing and reducing land degradation, and restoring degraded areas offers the potential to deliver benefits at various spatial and/or institutional levels, as well as working across a number of policy areas and stakeholder groups {8 .4 .1}. While these policies seek to ensure good quality of life and that national growth is supported, they sometimes fuel land degradation, which over time reduces productivity-leading to higher demand for more land and can increase deforestation with negative impacts on climate {8 .4 .1, 8 .4 .2} .

To assess past climate variability in west-central Scandinavia, a new 972-year-long temperature reconstruction, based on adjusted delta blue intensity (ΔBI adj), was created. Presently, it is the longest blue intensity chronology in Fennoscandia and the third longest in the northern hemisphere. Measurements were obtained from 119 tree line Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) samples from Rogen, in the central Scandinavian Mountains, Sweden. Early and latewood blue intensity absorption data were used to create ΔBI adj. The data were detrended using a signal-free regional curve standardization method (RSFi) to minimize biological noise and maximize low-frequency climate information. The Rogen ΔBI adj chronology has a substantially stronger temperature signal at inter-annual timescales than the corresponding tree-ring width (RW) chronology, and it displays good spatial representation for the south-central parts of Scandinavia. The ΔBI adj summer (June through August) temperature reconstruction, extending back to 1038 CE, exhibits three warm periods in 1040-1190 CE, 1370-1570 CE and the 20th century and one extended cold period between 1570 and 1920 CE. Regional summer temperature anomalies are associated with a Scandinavian-Greenland dipole sea-level pressure pattern, which has been stable for the past several centuries. Major volcanic eruptions produce distinct anomalies of ΔBI adj indices indicating cooling of summer temperatures in the subsequent years. Our results show that ΔBI adj from Pinus sylvestris in Scandinavia is a suitable proxy providing opportunities to explore past temperature variability at various frequencies, atmospheric dynamics and variability in external forcing. Nevertheless, long-term trend differences with RW imply that further research is needed to fully understand the application of this technique in dendroclimatology.

3.4.3 Formal policies and their effects on biodiversity 3.5 Policy assessment applied: some examples 3.5.1 A closer look at the scaling mismatch and the effects of globalisation on biodiversity in coastal ecosystems 3.5.2 Likely future effects of increased biodiversity protection efforts 3.5.3 A case study of biodiversity implications of biofuels policies 4 Bottlenecks and solutions 4.1.1 A closer look at possible marine ecosystem specific bottlenecks and solutions 4.1.2 A closer look at the role of governance as a potential bottleneck 4.2 Conclusions and recommendations 3

Global scale dynamic vegetation models simulate the global C cycle and atmosphere-vegetation interactions, an essential component in the global climate system. The important role of the N-cycle in determining fluxes of carbon and climate dynamics is unequivocally evident. The current generation of ecosystem models include progressively carbon-nitrogen interactions but vary in their representation of important processes. We contribute to this development by evaluating predictions of the newly implemented N-cycle in LPJ-GUESS with direct observations.

As a response to the IPCC needs for coordinated high resolution simulations, the WCRP Initiative on CORDEX designed a framework to perform an ensemble of regional climate models covering major land-masses of the globe at a high spatial resolution of 25 km. This CORDEX Coordinated Output for Regional Evaluation (CORE) framework will produce a baseline set of homogeneous high-resolution dynamically downscaled projections forced by selected global climate models and two representative concentration pathways scenarios (lowand high-end scenario).

Recent evidence shows that climate change is leading to irreversible and existential impacts on vulnerable communities and countries across the globe. Among other effects, this has given rise to public debate and engagement around notions of climate crisis and emergency. The Loss and Damage (L&D) policy debate has emphasized these aspects over the last three decades. Yet, despite institutionalization through an article on L&D by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the Paris Agreement, the debate has remained vague, particularly with reference to its remit and relationship to adaptation policy and practice. Research has recently made important strides forward in terms of developing a science perspective on L&D. This article reviews insights derived from recent publications by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others, and presents the implications for science and policy. Emerging evidence on hard and soft adaptation limits in ce...

Recent evidence shows that climate change is leading to irreversible and existential impacts on vulnerable communities and countries across the globe. Among other effects, this has given rise to public debate and engagement around notions of climate crisis and emergency. The Loss and Damage (L&D) policy debate has emphasized these aspects over the last three decades. Yet, despite institutionalization through an article on L&D by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the Paris Agreement, the debate has remained vague, particularly with reference to its remit and relationship to adaptation policy and practice. Research has recently made important strides forward in terms of developing a science perspective on L&D. This article reviews insights derived from recent publications by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others, and presents the implications for science and policy. Emerging evidence on hard and soft adaptation limits in ce...

I enlighet med Jordbruksverkets forfragan behandlar denna rapport tre omraden for digital teknik vid overvakning och kontroll av djur som vistas utomhus pa stora ytor: (1) kamerateknologi, t.ex. anvandning av dronare, (2) positioneringsteknologi som GPS och (3) teknologi for att styra djurens rorelser, som drivning med dronare och anvandning av s.k. virtuella stangsel. De tre teknikomradena overlappar delvis varandra. Digital tillsyn av utegaende djur ar beroende av att sensorer mater det man tror att de mater med tillracklig noggrannhet och att data kan overforas och bearbetas till information som lagras och analyseras pa ett sakert och korrekt satt. Sadana teknologier benamns med samlingsnamnet ’Precision Livestock Farming’ (PLF). Anvandningen av informationen ar avgorande for teknikens anvandbarhet i tillsyns- och djurskyddsarbete. Tillampningarna ar till viss del reglerade av gallande lagstiftning, exempelvis genom krav pa tillsyn, begransad anvandning av elektricitet for att st...

As flood inundation risk maps have become a central piece of information for both urban and risk management planning, also a need to assess the accuracies and uncertainties of these maps has emerged. Most maps show the inundation boundaries as crisp lines on visually appealing maps, whereby many planners and decision makers, among others, automatically believe the boundaries are both accurate and reliable. However, as this study shows, probably all such maps, even those that are based on high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs), have immanent uncertainties which can be directly related to both DEM resolution and the steepness of terrain slopes perpendicular to the river flow direction. Based on a number of degenerated DEMs, covering areas along the Eskilstuna River, Sweden, these uncertainties have been quantified into an empirically-derived disparity distance equation, yielding values of distance between true and modeled inundation boundary location. Using the inundation polygon, the DEM, a value representing the DEM resolution, and the desired level of confidence as inputs in a new-developed algorithm that utilizes the disparity distance equation, the slope and DEM dependent uncertainties can be directly visualized on a map. The implications of this strategy should benefit planning and help reduce high costs of floods where infrastructure, etc., have been placed in flood-prone areas without enough consideration of map uncertainties. Keywords 1D hydraulic modeling Á River flood inundation Á Uncertainty Á Quantile regression Á Geographical information systems (GIS) Á Digital elevation model (DEM)

Biomass burning in the Brazilian Amazon is modulated by climate factors, such as droughts, and by human factors, such as deforestation, and land management activities. The increase in forest fires during drought years has led to the hypothesis that fire activity decoupled from deforestation during the twenty-first century. However, assessment of the hypothesis relied on an incorrect active fire dataset, which led to an underestimation of the decreasing trend in fire activity and to an inflated rank for year 2015 in terms of active fire counts. The recent correction of that database warrants a reassessment of the relationships between deforestation and fire. Contrasting with earlier findings, we show that the exacerbating effect of drought on fire season severity did not increase from 2003 to 2015 and that the record-breaking dry conditions of 2015 had the least impact on fire season of all twenty-first century severe droughts. Overall, our results for the same period used in the stu...

This report presents a project with the aim to develop methods for large companies on how to work with energy efficiency that stretches along the value chain. By studying organizational conditions and physical effects on energy and climate for six cases in three companies, recommendations are given to businesses and governments on how to work for increased life cycle energy efficiency. The results point to a range of organizational and economic challenges, but also to enablers. Four strategies for progress were identified: A) Find and share the life cycle benefits, B) Enable and encourage understanding and action, C) Get focus and priorities in line, and D) Seek or create a way forward. The study points to the need to be strategic, and to translate this strategy into priorities and operational work. Yet, it must be recognized that life cycle thinking is not the work by one company and there is a call for cross-actor arenas to discuss and develop governance of value chains beyond the...

Timescale uncertainties between paleoclimate reconstructions often inhibit studying the exact timing, spatial expression and driving mechanisms of climate variations. Detecting and aligning the globally common cosmogenic radionuclide production signal via a curve fitting method provides a tool for the quasi-continuous synchronization of paleoclimate archives. In this study, we apply this approach to synchronize 10 Be records from varved sediments of Tiefer See and Lake Czechowskie covering the Maunder, Homeric and 5500 a BP grand solar minima with 14 C production rates inferred from the IntCal13 calibration curve. Our analyses indicate best fits with 14 C production rates when the 10 Be records from Tiefer See were shifted for 8 (−12/+4) (Maunder Minimum), 31 (−16/ + 12) (Homeric Minimum) and 86 (−22/+18) years (5500 a BP grand solar minimum) towards the past. The best fit between the Lake Czechowskie 10 Be record for the 5500 a BP grand solar minimum and 14 C production was obtained when the 10 Be time series was shifted 29 (−8/ + 7) years towards present. No significant fits were detected between the Lake Czechowskie 10 Be records for the Maunder and Homeric minima and 14 C production, likely due to intensified in-lake sediment resuspension since about 2800 a BP, transporting "old" 10 Be to the coring location. Our results provide a proof of concept for facilitating 10 Be in varved lake sediments as a novel synchronization tool required for investigating leads and lags of proxy responses to climate variability. However, they also point to some limitations of 10 Be in these archives, mainly connected to in-lake sediment resuspension processes.

Rainfall variability is becoming more profound in East Africa. Smallholders relying on rainfed agriculture are particularly affected and need to adapt their farming systems accordingly. This study examined the measures small-scale farmers use to adapt to, or cope with rainfall variability and their rated perceived effectiveness. It also explored limitations to adoption of measures and sources of learning measures. Questionnairebased interviews were held with 80 smallholder farmers, both female and male, living in Kisumu and Trans Nzoia counties in Kenya who had regular or sporadic access to advisory services (denoted trained and non-trained farmers). Trained farmers used more adaptation measures, especially of the measures perceived to be more effective, than non-trained farmers. Female farmers felt more limited by lack of knowledge than male farmers, while money, land and labour limited the smallholder farmers equally. Few measures were used to overcome limitations, but several limitations were covered within the advisory package used for trained farmers, and therefore large differences were seen not only in numbers of measures used, but also in the choice of measures and perceived effectiveness of use. Thus advisory services and policy interventions can play important roles in future efforts to improve adoption of measures.

We analyze the potential effect of global warming levels (GWLs) of 1.5 • C and 2 • C above pre-industrial levels (1861−1890) on mean temperature and precipitation as well as intra-seasonal precipitation extremes over the Greater Horn of Africa. We used a large, 25-member regional climate model ensemble from the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment and show that, compared to the control period of 1971−2000, annual mean near-surface temperature is projected to increase by more than 1 • C and 1.5 • C over most parts of the Greater Horn of Africa, under GWLs of 1.5 • C and 2 • C respectively. The highest temperature increases are projected in the northern region, covering most parts of Sudan and northern parts of Ethiopia, and the lowest temperature increases are projected over the coastal belt of Tanzania. However, the projected mean surface temperature difference between 2 • C and 1. 5 • C GWLs is higher than 0.5 • C over nearly all land points, reaching 0.8 • C over Sudan and northern Ethiopia. This implies that the Greater Horn of Africa will warm faster than the global mean. While projected changes in precipitation are mostly uncertain across the Greater Horn of Africa, there is a substantial decrease over the central and northern parts of Ethiopia. Additionally, the length of dry and wet spells is projected to increase and decrease respectively. The combined effect of a reduction in rainfall and the changes in the wet and dry spells will likely impact negatively on the livelihoods of people within the coastal cities, lake regions, highlands as well as arid and semi-arid lands of Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. The probable impacts of these changes on key sectors such as agriculture, water, energy and health sectors, will likely call for formulation of actionable policies geared towards adaptation and mitigation of the impacts of 1.5 • C and 2 • C warming.

Understanding the long-term dynamics of ecological communities on the centuries-to-millennia scale is important for explaining the emergence of present-day biodiversity patterns and for predicting possible future scenarios. Fossil pigments and ancient DNA present in various sedimentary deposits can be analysed to study long-term changes in ecological communities. We analysed recent compilations of data, including fossil pigments, microfossils, and molecular inventories from the sedimentary archives, to understand the impact of gradual versus abrupt climate changes on the ecosystem status of a regional model lake over the last~14.5 kyr. Such long and complete paleo-archives are scarce in NorthEastern Europe. The study site lies in a sensitive area, both climatically and in respect to vegetation. Namely the maritime-continentality line runs west to east in the central Baltic area to NE Europe and its southnorth transect lies within the gradual decay of the nemoral forest into a boreal environment. Therefore, the selected location is an ideal sampling point to decipher long term environmental changes in the temperate climate zone. The main objective of the present study was to find out external factors influencing phototroph dynamics at temperate Lake Lielais Sv etiņ u over the post-glacial period (~14.5 kyr). We were able to model climate change together with vegetation change and the appearance of anthropogenic forcing, either as a gradual change or as abrupt events that influenced the phototrophs, which are keystone groups within the lacustrine ecosystem. Most interestingly, the gradual increase of species richness of phototrophs was linked to similar increase in fungal parasites of the same group e phototrophs. Abrupt climate change in the Late Glacial period caused abrupt events in the ecosystem but equally abrupt events were caused by gradual changes during the stable period of the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM). In addition, we highlight the increased frequency and degree of perturbation in pristine lakes due to low impact human activity over a larger region. Both observations demonstrate an impaired relationship between gradual external drivers and ecosystem response and apply to future scenarios of climate warming and increased human impact in northeastern Europe.

The use of regional climate model (RCM)‐based projections for providing regional climate information in a research and climate service contexts is currently expanding very fast. This has been possible thanks to a considerable effort in developing comprehensive ensembles of RCM projections, especially for Europe, in the EURO‐CORDEX community (Jacob et al., 2014, 2020). As of end of 2019, EURO‐CORDEX has developed a set of 55 historical and scenario projections (RCP8.5) using 8 driving global climate models (GCMs) and 11 RCMs. This article presents the ensemble including its design. We target the analysis to better characterize the quality of the RCMs by providing an evaluation of these RCM simulations over a number of classical climate variables and extreme and impact‐oriented indices for the period 1981–2010. For the main variables, the model simulations generally agree with observations and reanalyses. However, several systematic biases are found as well, with shared responsibiliti...

In this study, we evaluate a set of high-resolution (25-50 km horizontal grid spacing) global climate models (GCMs) from the High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP), developed as part of the EU-funded PRIMAVERA (Process-based climate simulation: Advances in high resolution modelling and European climate risk assessment) project, and from the EURO-CORDEX (Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment) regional climate models (RCMs) (12-50 km horizontal grid spacing) over a European domain. It is the first time that an assessment of regional climate information using ensembles of both GCMs and RCMs at similar horizontal resolutions has been possible. The focus of the evaluation is on the distribution of daily precipitation at a 50 km scale under current climate conditions. Both the GCM and RCM ensembles are evaluated against high-quality gridded observations in terms of spatial resolution and station density. We show that both ensembles outperform GCMs from the 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), which cannot capture the regional-scale precipitation distribution properly because of their coarse resolutions. PRIMAVERA GCMs generally simulate precipitation distributions within the range of EURO-CORDEX RCMs. Both ensembles perform better in summer and autumn in most European regions but Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 5486 M.-E. Demory et al.: European daily precipitation in EURO-CORDEX RCMs and HighResMIP GCMs tend to overestimate precipitation in winter and spring. PRI-MAVERA shows improvements in the latter by reducing moderate-precipitation rate biases over central and western Europe. The spatial distribution of mean precipitation is also improved in PRIMAVERA. Finally, heavy precipitation simulated by PRIMAVERA agrees better with observations in most regions and seasons, while CORDEX overestimates precipitation extremes. However, uncertainty exists in the observations due to a potential undercatch error, especially during heavy-precipitation events. The analyses also confirm previous findings that, although the spatial representation of precipitation is improved, the effect of increasing resolution from 50 to 12 km horizontal grid spacing in EURO-CORDEX daily precipitation distributions is, in comparison, small in most regions and seasons outside mountainous regions and coastal regions. Our results show that both high-resolution GCMs and CORDEX RCMs provide adequate information to end users at a 50 km scale.

Many modelling groups that contribute to CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6) have found a larger equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) with their latest model versions compared with the values obtained with the earlier versions used in CMIP5. This is also the case for the EC-Earth model. Therefore, in this study, we investigate what developments since the CMIP5 era could have caused the increase in the ECS in this model. Apart from increases in the horizontal and vertical resolution, the EC-Earth model has also substantially changed the representation of aerosols; in particular, it has introduced a more sophisticated description of aerosol indirect effects. After testing the model with some of the recent updates switched off, we find that the ECS increase can be attributed to the more advanced treatment of aerosols, with the largest contribution coming from the effect of aerosols on cloud microphysics (cloud lifetime or second indirect effect). The increase in climate sensitivity is unrelated to model tuning, as all experiments were performed with the same tuning parameters and only the representation of the aerosol effects was changed. These results cannot be generalised to other models, as their CMIP5 and CMIP6 versions may differ with respect to aspects other than the aerosol-cloud interaction, but the results highlight the strong sensitivity of ECS to the details of the aerosol forcing.

Climate change scenarios predict increases in temperature and organic matter supply from land to water, which affect trophic transfer of nutrients and contaminants in aquatic food webs. How essential nutrients, such as polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), and potentially toxic contaminants, such as methylmercury (MeHg), at the base of aquatic food webs will be affected under climate change scenarios, remains unclear. The objective of this outdoor mesocosm study was to examine how increased water temperature and terrestrially-derived dissolved organic matter supply (tDOM; i.e., lake browning), and the interaction of both, will influence MeHg and PUFA in organisms at the base of food webs (i.e. seston; the most edible plankton size for zooplankton) in subalpine lake ecosystems. The interaction of higher temperature and tDOM increased the burden of MeHg in seston (< 40 μm) and larger sized plankton (microplankton; 40–200 μm), while the MeHg content per unit biomass remained stable. H...

This chapter analyzes the evolution of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from a specialist organization of climate scientists into an institution at the nexus of science and politics. We explain how the IPCC became the primary scientific authority for policymakers, the public, and climate activists on the existence, severity, consequences of, and, increasingly, possible solutions to anthropogenic climate change. We assess its influence on policymakers and governments, while examining the various tensions, critiques, and contradictions that the organization and its leaders have had to grapple with across its 32-year history, during which it successfully developed a distinct identity as a trusted provider of comprehensive scientific assessments. Our analysis also focuses on the institutional reforms that helped restore legitimacy to IPCC after ‘climategate’ and other controversies.

Areas in western Antarctica are experiencing rapid climate change, where ocean warming results in more sea ice melt simultaneously as oceanic CO2levels are increasing. In this study, we have tested how increased temperature (from −1.8 to 3 °C) and decreased salinity (from 35 to 20 and 10) synergistically affect the growth, photophysiology and biochemical composition of the Antarctic sea-ice diatomNitzschia lecointei. In a separate experiment, we also addressed how ocean acidification (from 400 to 1000 µatm partial pressure of CO2) affects these key physiological parameters. Both positive and negative changes in specific growth rate, particulate organic carbon to particulate organic nitrogen ratio, chlafluorescence kinetics, lipid peroxidation, carbohydrate content, protein content, fatty acid content and composition were observed when cells were exposed to warming and desalination. However, when cells were subjected to increased pCO2, onlyFv/Fm, non-photochemical quenching and lipid...

Hydro-climatic change in irrigated world regions Understanding of hydro-climatic changes in the world's river basins is required, for instance towards ensuring future food security. Different regional basins experience different levels of hydro-climatic change and different water resource impacts of climate change depending on the endorheic (discharging into terminal inland water) or exorheic (discharging into the ocean) nature of a hydrological basin, along with the climatic conditions and human land-use and water-use practices (for instance for agriculture and its irrigation) within the basin. This thesis has analyzed long-term hydro-climatic changes in two main irrigated regions of the world: the Mahanadi River Basin (MRB) in India and the Aral region in Central Asia, including the terminal Aral Sea and the hydrological basin draining into it. The thesis applies a basin-wise, data-driven water balance-constrained approach to understanding and quantifying the hydro-climatic changes, and to distinguish their main drivers in the past century and for future scenario projections. Results point at human water-use and water redistribution for irrigation within a basin as a major driver of water balance and water resource changes, which also affect surface temperature in the region. Cross-regional comparison for the two different study basins clarifies the importance of different perspectives on hydro-climatic change. One perspective may for instance focus on the climatically important changes of water, vapor and latent heat fluxes at the land surface, while another may focus on changes to water resource availability in the landscape, with different change drivers then being dominant from these different perspectives on continental water change. Thesis results show that irrigationdriven changes in evapotranspiration and latent heat fluxes and associated temperature changes at the land surface may be greater in regions with small relative irrigation impacts on water availability in the landscape (here represented by MRB) than in regions with severe such impacts (here represented by the Aral region). This implies that one cannot from the knowledge about only one aspect of hydro-climatic change (such as temperature and precipitation changes at the land surface as given from climate modeling) simply extrapolate the impact importance of those changes for other types of water changes (such as on availability of water resources) in a region. Climate model projections from General Circulation Models (GCMs) used in the fourth assessment report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were also studied in the thesis regarding their performance against hydrologically important, basin-scale observational temperature and precipitation datasets. Results show lack of consistency in individual GCM performance with regard to temperature and to precipitation, implying difficulties to identify well-performing GCMs with regard to both of these variables in a region. For the example case of the Aral region, the thesis shows that consideration of the ensemble mean of different GCM outputs may instead provide robust projection of future hydro-climate changes in a regional hydrological basin.

Hydro-climatic change in irrigated world regions Understanding of hydro-climatic changes in the world's river basins is required, for instance towards ensuring future food security. Different regional basins experience different levels of hydro-climatic change and different water resource impacts of climate change depending on the endorheic (discharging into terminal inland water) or exorheic (discharging into the ocean) nature of a hydrological basin, along with the climatic conditions and human land-use and water-use practices (for instance for agriculture and its irrigation) within the basin. This thesis has analyzed long-term hydro-climatic changes in two main irrigated regions of the world: the Mahanadi River Basin (MRB) in India and the Aral region in Central Asia, including the terminal Aral Sea and the hydrological basin draining into it. The thesis applies a basin-wise, data-driven water balance-constrained approach to understanding and quantifying the hydro-climatic changes, and to distinguish their main drivers in the past century and for future scenario projections. Results point at human water-use and water redistribution for irrigation within a basin as a major driver of water balance and water resource changes, which also affect surface temperature in the region. Cross-regional comparison for the two different study basins clarifies the importance of different perspectives on hydro-climatic change. One perspective may for instance focus on the climatically important changes of water, vapor and latent heat fluxes at the land surface, while another may focus on changes to water resource availability in the landscape, with different change drivers then being dominant from these different perspectives on continental water change. Thesis results show that irrigationdriven changes in evapotranspiration and latent heat fluxes and associated temperature changes at the land surface may be greater in regions with small relative irrigation impacts on water availability in the landscape (here represented by MRB) than in regions with severe such impacts (here represented by the Aral region). This implies that one cannot from the knowledge about only one aspect of hydro-climatic change (such as temperature and precipitation changes at the land surface as given from climate modeling) simply extrapolate the impact importance of those changes for other types of water changes (such as on availability of water resources) in a region. Climate model projections from General Circulation Models (GCMs) used in the fourth assessment report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were also studied in the thesis regarding their performance against hydrologically important, basin-scale observational temperature and precipitation datasets. Results show lack of consistency in individual GCM performance with regard to temperature and to precipitation, implying difficulties to identify well-performing GCMs with regard to both of these variables in a region. For the example case of the Aral region, the thesis shows that consideration of the ensemble mean of different GCM outputs may instead provide robust projection of future hydro-climate changes in a regional hydrological basin.

In the year 2000, the Swedish Parliament adopted the bill "From patient to citizen a national action plan for the disability policy". One of the key goals in this action plan was to turn Sweden into a society accessible for all, latest by 2010. Now, ten years later, it is obvious that the goal is not implemented. The main objectives for my research is to find out the main reasons for why the goal has not yet been implemented, despite a generous timetable of ten years, political unity, ratified FN conventions, directives from the European Union, informationcampaigns and other measures taken at the national level by relevant authorities. The empirical facts consists of materials collected from follow-ups by the Government, authorities as the National Board for Housing, Building and Planning; the Swedish agency for disability policy coordination; Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions combined with interviews of main stakeholders. This material is connected to a theoretical framework, where Lundquist's model of the implementation process in public administrations plays a main role, together with theories connected to governance and political processes. The main results shows that the specific objective in the National Action Plan, to take actions against barriers in the built environment to ensure accessibility and usability in public buildings and spaces latest by 2010, is a technical complex issue that needs cohesive and coordinated measures in a wide range of fields, and that full attention has not yet been paid to all weak links in the process.