Climate changes in the Mediterranean region, related to a significant increase in temperature and changes in precipitation patterns, can potentially affect local economies. Agriculture and tourism are undoubtedly the most important economic sources for Greece and these may be more strongly affected by changing future climate conditions. Climate change and their various negative impacts on human life are also detected in their environment; hence this study deals with implications, caused by changing climate, in urban and forest areas. Potential changes for the mid-twenty-first century (2021–2050) are analysed using a high-resolution regional climate model. This paper presents relevant climatic indices, indicative for potential implications which may jeopardise vital economic/environmental sectors of the country. The results provide insights into particular regions of the Greek territory that may undergo substantial impacts due to climate change. It is concluded that the duration of dry days is expected to increase in most of the studied agricultural regions. Winter precipitation generally decreases, whereas an increase in autumn precipitation is projected in most areas. Changing climate conditions associated with increased minimum temperatures (approximately 1.3°C) and decreased winter precipitation by 15% on average suggest that the risk for forest fires is intensified in the future. In urban areas, unpleasantly high temperatures during day and night will increase the feeling of discomfort in the citizens, while flash floods events are expected to occur more frequently. Another impact of climate change in urban regions is the increasing energy demand for cooling in summer. Finally, it was found that continental tourist areas of the Greek mainland will more often face heatwave episodes. In coastal regions, increased temperatures especially at night in combination with high levels of relative humidity can lead to conditions that are nothing less than uncomfortable for foreigners and the local population. In general, projected changes associated with temperature have a higher degree of confidence than those associated with precipitation.

Climate change has the potential to influence many aspects of wildfire behavior and risk. During the last decade, Greece has experienced large-scale wildfire phenomena with unprecedented fire behavior and impacts. In this study, thousands of wildfire events were simulated with the Minimum Travel Time (MTT) fire growth algorithm (called Randig) and resulted in spatial data that describe conditional burn probabilities, potential fire spread and intensity in Messinia, Greece. Present (1961–1990) and future (2071–2100) climate projections were derived from simulations of the KNMI regional climate model RACMO2, under the SRES A1B emission scenario. Data regarding fuel moisture content, wind speed and direction were modified for the different projection time periods to be used as inputs in Randig. Results were used to assess the vulnerability changes for certain values-at-risk of the natural and human-made environment. Differences in wildfire risk were calculated and results revealed that larger wildfires that resist initial control are to be expected in the future, with higher conditional burn probabilities and intensities for extensive parts of the study area. The degree of change in the modeled Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index for the two time periods also revealed an increasing trend in frequencies of higher values for the future.

Most riverflow records in the United Kingdom are relatively short, with some of the longest continuous series beginning in the late 1950s. In contrast, rainfall records are plentiful with many extending back into the early decades of the nineteenth century. Earlier works have developed a method for reconstructing riverflow data from the longer rainfall series. The work reported here extends previous reconstructions from the middle of the 1990s to 2002. The inclusion of recent very wet periods has allowed a more comprehensive validation of the reconstruction model. Comparisons of reconstructed and observed flows for 1980–2002 imply that land-use changes have had little effect on flows, at least at the monthly time step. In addition, for some catchments, the inadequacy of flow-gauging installations under such extreme flow conditions is discussed. The reconstructions could prove useful for flow naturalisation for some catchments. The wet autumn of 2000 and the ensuing hydrological extremes during 2000 and 2001 are put into the context of the full 1865–2002 flow reconstructions. For 1980–2002, there were few low flow periods. The years 1984, 1989 and especially 1995 rank in the five lowest flows since 1865 on more than one catchment, but low flows during 1870, 1887, 1921, 1933/4 and 1976 were more spatially extensive. Copyright © 2005 Royal Meteorological Society.

Study of CO surface pollution in Europe based on observations and nested-grid applications of GEOS-CHEM global chemical transport model