Impacts of climate change and rising atmospheric CO2 on future projected reference evapotranspiration in Emilia-Romagna (Italy)

Abstract

The continuous increase of atmospheric CO2 content mainly due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions is causing a rise in temperature on earth, altering the hydrological and meteorological processes and affecting crop physiology. Evapotranspiration is an important component of the hydrological cycle. Thus, understanding the change in evapotranspiration due to global warming is essential for better water resources planning and management and agricultural production. In this study, the effect of climate change with a focus on the combined effect of temperature and elevated CO2 concentrations on reference evapotranspiration (ETo) was evaluated using the Penman–Monteith equation. A EURO-CORDEX regional climate model (RCM) ensemble was used to estimate ETo in five locations in the Emilia-Romagna region (Northern Italy) during the period 2021–2050. Then, its projected changes in response to different CO2 concentrations (i.e., 372 ppm and 550 ppm) under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios (i.e., RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) were analyzed. Simulation results with both scenarios, without increasing CO2 levels (372 ppm), showed that the annual and summertime ETo for all locations increased by an average of 4 to 5.4% with regard to the reference period 1981–2005, for an increase of air temperature by 1 to 1.5 °C. When the effect of elevated CO2 levels (550 ppm) was also considered in combination with projected changes in temperature, changes in both annual and summer ETo demand for all locations varied from − 1.1 to 2.2% during the 2021–2050 period with regard to the reference period 1981–2005. This shows that higher CO2 levels moderated the increase in ETo that accompanies an increase in air temperature.

Climate change: north and south EU economies—an application of dynamic asymmetric panel data models

“…A key one is that climatic data used are not real observations, but the outcome of reanalysis data without any missing values. So, aspects of their reliability are controversial among meteorologists, as long as some believe that they diverge from real data (Velikou et al 2022 ), but others trust them as attested and sufficient approximations (Ben Hamouda et al 2021 ). So, future scientists who want to use high-resolution climatic data should consider the trade-off between using real data with missing values against utilizing fully available reanalysis products.…”

Dynamics of Coastal Aquifers: Conceptualization and Steady-State Calibration of Multilayer Aquifer System—Southern Coast of Emilia Romagna

“…This area is not free of threats such as storm, seawater intrusion, soil erosion, shore line alteration and especially land subsidence caused by groundwater pumping and soil compaction [27][28][29]. The Apennine Mountain chain, together with the Alps Mountain chain, create an orographic barrier to the cyclones formed in the Atlantic Ocean and in the area near the Iberian Peninsula [30]. By reducing the moist air circulation in this way, the rainfall is minimized at the leeward side, the side which covers the present study area.…”