CIRCE: Climate Change and Impact Research: the Mediterranean Environment, for European Commission, DG Environment
CIRCE aims at developing for the first time an assessment of the climate change impacts in the Mediterranean area. The objectives of the project are:
- To predict and to quantify physical impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean area
- To evaluate the consequences of climate change for the society and the economy of the populations located in the Mediterranean area
- To develop an integrated approach to understand combined effects of climate change
- To identify adaptation and mitigation strategies in collaboration with regional stakeholders CIRCE wants to understand and to explain how climate will change in the Mediterranean area.
The project will investigate how global and Mediterranean climates interact, how the radiative properties of the atmosphere and the radiative fluxes vary, the interaction between cloudiness and aerosol, the modifications in the water cycle. Recent observed modifications in the climate variables and detected trends will be compared. The economic and social consequences of climate change shall be evaluated by analysing direct impacts on migration, tourism and energy markets together with indirect impacts on the economic system. CIRCE will moreover investigate the consequences on agriculture, forests and ecosystems. human health and air quality. The variability of extreme events in the future scenario and their impacts will be assessed. A rigorous common framework, including a set of quantitative indicators developed specifically for the Mediterranean environment will be developed and used in collaboration with regional stakeholders. The results will be incorporated in a decision support system tool and disseminated to the relevant users. Possible adaptation and mitigation strategies will be identified. The integrated results discussed by the project CIRCE will be presented in the first Regional Assessment of Climate Change in the Mediterranean area.
Project Coordinator
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
Partners
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas-Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra “Jaume Almera” (CSIC), Fundación Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Mediterráneo (CEAM), CLU Ltd (CLU), Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), University of Crete-Environmental Chemical Processes Laboratory (UOC), Ente per le Nuove Tecnologie-l'Energia e l'Ambiente (ENEA), Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), Institute for Coastal Research (GKSS), GKSS Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications (IASA), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Potsdam Institut für Klimafolgenforschung (PIK), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM), World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe (WHO), Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations Internationales (IDDRI), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC-NOCS), Max-Planck-Society for the Advancement of Science (MPG), National Observatory of Athens (NOA), National Institute of Marine Sciences and Technologies (INSTM), University of Haifa (HU), University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), European Commission DG Joint Research Centre (EC-DG-JRC), Parc Cientific de Barcelona (PCB -LRC), ASL RME, Department of Epidemiology (ASL Rome), Meteo-France (METEO-FRANCE), Met Office (METOFFICE), Università degli Studi della Tuscia (UNITUSCIA), Stochkolm Environment Institute - University of York (SEI-YO), University of Birmingham (UBIRM), Universidad del Pais Vasco (UPV-EHU), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Tel-Aviv University (TAU), Univerdidad de Alcala (UAH), Zadigroma srl (ZADIGROMA), University of East Anglia (UEA), Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB), Instituto de Ciência Aplicada e Tecnologia da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (ICAT-UL), Universität Hamburg (UNIHH), University of the Aegean (UNIAEGEAN), Centre For Environment and Development For Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE), University of Bern (UNIBERN), Università degli Studi - L'Aquila (CETEMPS), Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin), University of Lecce (UNILE), European Climate Forum (ECF), Vrije Univeristeit Amsterdam (VU), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI), Università di Santiago di Compostela (USC), Centro Euro-Mediterraneo per i Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), Institute Pasteur de Tunis (IPT), Association pour la Recherche sur le Climat et l'Environnement (ARCE), International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Hellenic Center for Marine Research (HCMR), University of Southampton (UNI-SOTON), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS), Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS), Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna – Dipartimento di Colture Arboree (UNIBO), MediasFrance (MEDIAS).
For further information please visit: CIRCE website
