The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published the second part of its sixth assessment report (AR6). The final wording was adopted by consensus by the 195 UNFCCC participating member states.
The assessment report focuses on the impact, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change and was compiled by a diverse group of experts in which Dr. Aristeidis Koutroulis, soon to be appointed Associate Professor of the Chemical and Environmental Engineering School - Technical University of Crete, participated as Contributing Author for the Water chapter. The chapter assesses the current impacts of climate change on the global water cycle, the anticipated water-related risks to human and natural systems, adaptation alternatives and their effectiveness.
The most important contribution is the investigation of the current hydrological impacts of man-made climate change but also of the expected changes estimated by considering a wide set of projections on a global scale. This information is summarized in Figure 4.16 of the report for selected global river basins.
In addition, the following peer-reviewed articles contributed to the large body of published literature providing essential foundation for the assessment.
- Koutroulis, A. G., et al. (2016). Cross sectoral impacts on water availability at +2 °C and +3 °C for east Mediterranean island states: the case of Crete. Journal of Hydrology 532, pp. 16-28.
- Koutroulis A.G., et al. (2019) Global water availability under high-end climate change: a vulnerability based assessment, Global and Planetary Change, 2019, 175, pp.52-63.
- Koutroulis, A.G., et al. (2019) Dryland changes under different levels of global warming. Science of the Total Environment, 2019, 10, pp. 482-511.
- Gudmundsson L. et al. (2021). Globally observed trends in mean and extreme river flow attributed to climate change. Science. 2021 Vol. 371, 6534, pp. 1159-1162,
- Pokhrel, Y. et al., (2021). Global terrestrial water storage and drought severity under climate change. Nature Climate 29 Change, 11 (3), pp. 226-233
The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) provides a high-level summary of the key findings of the Working Group II Full Report and is approved by the IPCC member governments line by line.
