The national German TV channel “ARD” contacted GERICS after hearing about the release of the  “Klimaausblicke” (Climate outlooks). In   the news item the reporter says that the data describing climate change in Germany has remained rather coarse in the past. This has now been changed by the publication of the analysis of climate data for each of the German counties by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon / GERICS.

Altogether, 401   “Klimaausblicke” (Climate outlooks) can be downloaded for free to enable counties to prepare for the future.

Daniela Jacob says German counties now have access to detailed knowledge about possible future climate change, which needs to be considered for future planning.  No-one in Germany may say in the future: I didn’t know this.

The “Klimaausblicke” are based on 85 climate simulations (from the EURO-CORDEX community). Different scenarios, which depend on future climate mitigation, have been investigated,.

As an example, climate change information for different indices are given for the city of Karlsruhe located in South-Western Germany for RCP4.5 – representing a ‘middle’ emission concentration development.

Norbert Hacker, head of environment protection and work safety   in Karlsruhe, another guest on this news item talked about the consequences of present day climate change impacts and strategies, e.g., the dying of trees due to droughts and possible measures like watering trees in the city.

To sum up, it is mentioned that the “Klimaausblicke” are based on model simulations for this century carried out in a European effort. The spread shows that future climate change could be stronger or weaker dependent on our mitigation efforts.

After the release of “Klimaausblicke”, Daniela Jacob says that mitigating climate change is essential and that it is now obvious which consequences and related costs can be avoided by mitigating climate change.

Links:

TV-Spot of ARD (German television): https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video-886911.html

GERICS press release: https://gerics.de/about/news_and_events/news/102260/index.php.en

GERICS product page (German only): https://gerics.de/products_and_publications/fact_sheets/landkreise/index.php.de

Interactive map: https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/klimawandel-hitze-starkregen-deutschland-karte/