Bioclimatic change as a function of global warming from CMIP6 climate projections

TL;DR

This study uses CMIP6 climate models and a bioclimatic classification system to quantify how much land area will undergo significant climate change with global warming, highlighting the importance of limiting warming to reduce ecological impacts.

Contribution

It provides a detailed assessment of bioclimatic shifts using CMIP6 models and a simplified classification scheme, offering new estimates of land affected per degree of warming.

Findings

Approximately 12% of land experiences significant bioclimatic change per 1K warming.

Major shifts from colder, wetter to hotter, drier bioclimates are projected.

Limiting warming to 1.5K could prevent over 7 million km² of land from major bioclimatic change.

Abstract

Climate change is predicted to lead to major changes in terrestrial ecosystems. However, significant differences in climate model projections for given scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions, continue to hinder detailed assessment. Here we show, using a traditional Koppen-Geiger bioclimate classification system, that the latest CMIP6 Earth System Models actually agree very well on the fraction of the global land-surface that will undergo a significant change per degree of global warming. Data from historical and ssp585 model runs are used to create bioclimate maps at various degrees of global warming, and to investigate the performance of the ensemble mean when classifying climate data into discrete categories. Using a streamlined scheme with 13 classifications, global bioclimate classification maps at 2K and 4K of global warming above a 1901-1931 reference period are presented. These projections show large shifts in bioclimate distribution, with an almost exclusive change from colder, wetter bioclimates to hotter, dryer ones. Historical model run performance is assessed and examined by comparison with the bioclimatic classifications derived from the observed climate over the same time period. The fraction of the land experiencing a change in its bioclimatic class as a function of global warming is estimated by combining the results from the individual models. Despite the discrete nature of the bioclimatic classification scheme, we find only a weakly-saturating dependence of this fraction on global warming which implies about 12 pct of land experiencing a significant change in climate, per 1K increase in global mean temperature between the global warming levels of 1 and 3K. Therefore, we estimate that stabilising the climate at 1.5K rather than 2K of global warming, would save over 7 million square kilometres of land from a major bioclimatic change.