Reporting period April 2002 - Sept. 2002 Work package 1 Activities Work package 2 Activities Work package 3 Activities Work package 4 Activities Work package 5 Activities

Work package 1 Activities :

Technical work for the first Work Package (WP1) was undertaken over the period December 2000 to October 2001 and results were presented in two deliverables (D1 and D2) in June 2001 and November 2001 respectively. The objective of WP1 was to consolidate approaches and develop an understanding of the requirements for representing climate change in performance assessments (PAs) as perceived by the BIOCLIM participants. This was achieved through the collaboration between the organisations with responsibility for disposing of national radioactive waste and the regulatory agency within the BIOCLIM consortium. Information has been collated and summarised in two separate documents on :

• How climate change has been treated to date in performance assessments and
• How present day information and palaeological data on past climate change can be used as a basis for understanding how climate may affect the biosphere in the future.

The first document (Deliverable D1) summarises the mechanisms causing climate change, provides a synopsis of how environmental change is currently treated in such assessments, and summarises the lessons learned to date from such applications. The second document (Deliverable D2) provides present day narrative pictures together with palaeological climate and vegetation data for four European regions where deep radioactive disposal sites might be developed. This work will contribute to future Work Packages as a basis for understanding how past climate changes have influenced the current regional biosphere systems in order to lay the basis for modelling how radionuclides might migrate and accumulate in future biosphere systems and climate conditions following release from a repository.

This work has served two main purposes. First, it has contributed to an understanding of the type of information required for use in a radiological assessment and the problems associated with trying to model climate and environmental evolution over very long periods of time. The information is being used in Work Package 4 to guide approaches to the representation of long-term climate changes in radiological assessments. Secondly, the information on past regional characteristics will contribute to future work packages as a basis for understanding how past climate changes have influenced the current regional biosphere systems. The present and past data collations will help in the derivation of downscaling rules to enable regional climate and vegetation patterns to be derived from global scale modelling.

Work package 2 Activities :

The technical work of the second Work Package (WP2) is on-going and is scheduled to be completed by April 2003. Results of WP2 are to be presented in three documents (Deliverables D3, D4-D5 combined in just one, and D6) that are :

• Selection and Justification of global climate scenarios for periods up to one million years (D3)
• Global and European regional climate characteristics, output from discrete climate models at specific selected times (D4).
• Global and European regional vegetation characteristics at specific selected times (D5).
• Climate and vegetation characteristics for three regions within Western Europe derived using downscaling approaches (D6).

Deliverable D3 was delivered in October 2001. A first draft of deliverable D4+D5 was discussed at the last BIOCLIM progress meeting (Meeting 6, November 2002, Paris), the final draft of this deliverable being expected for February 2003. Work has not started yet on deliverable D6, whose final draft is planed for April 2003.

The general purpose of WP2 is to use a hierarchy of climate models (Earth system Model of Intermediate Complexity, General Circulation Model and regional climate model) to derive the environmental changes for selected discrete climatic situations (e.g. glacial and interglacial). Results consist in climate and vegetation cover at global and European scales. Downscaling approaches are being developed and evaluated in order to produce the corresponding environmental changes for the BIOCLIM regions of interest.

A first step of WP2 was to simulate the climate of the next million years under different scenarios for natural and anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing using the LLN 2-D NH climate model developped by UCL/ASTR. The results of these simulations have been evaluated and used to identify six specific climatic situations of particular interest for studying the impacts of radioactive waste repository sites. These climatic situations relate to three time periods that are :

• A very near future characterised by either very high or high atmospheric CO2 concentrations (1100ppmv or 550ppmv). Two simulations will be run, with all other parameters (such as insolation and ice volume) being taken as at the present;
• A possible future super interglacial condition, 67 ky After Present (AP) characterised by high insolation value. Two simulations will test two different atmospheric CO2 concentrations (550ppmv and 350ppmv) and the assumption of no ice sheet present. A third simulation will test the combined impacts of a 350ppmv atmospheric CO2 concentration and an ice sheet volume equivalent to that at present;
• The possible next episode of widespread northern hemisphere glaciation at 178 ky AP characterised by an atmospheric CO2 concentration back to pre-industrial level (275ppmv) and extensive development of Laurentide and Fennoscandian ice sheets.

The details of these WP2 experiments are presented in Deliverable D3, Table 3.

Currently, a general atmosphere-ocean circulation model (the LMDz model adapted for BIOCLIM purposes at LSCE) is being used to provide a more detailed picture of these climatic situations over Europe. A regional climate model (the MAR model developed at UCL/ASTR) will be used to produce estimates of local climate conditions at the selected sites/areas. Preliminary work with the MAR model was undertaken in January 2002. A large domain covering not only Western Europe but also a large part of the North Atlantic, North Africa and Eastern Europe has been selected. The procedure for the transfer of information from the GCM to the MAR model has been tested and a preliminary experiment over the domain for one year of the present climate condition has been performed. The MAR model is now ready to perform BIOCLIM experiments.

Statistical downscaling techniques will also be used to derive regional information, for comparison with the dynamical downscaling (i.e., the MAR output) and with the rule-based downscaling developed in Work Package 3. The GCM variables required as potential predictors for statistical downscaling have been identified, as have the predictands, i.e. monthly temperature and precipitation time series for stations in the three study areas.

Work package 3 Activities :

The technical work of the third Work Package (WP3) is on-going and scheduled to terminate in April 2003. Results of this work package are to be presented in three documents (Deliverables D7 to D9) that are :

• Scenarios for continuous climate evolution for one hundred thousand years or longer for Western Europe (D7).
• Comparison of regional climate characteristics using downscaling approaches (D8).
• Vegetation for the time scales of interest for the three regions within Western Europe (D9).

Work is on going on deliverables D7 and D8. Drafts of these documents have been circulating and discussed at the last BIOCLIM progress meeting. Final drafts are expected in March 2003. Work has not started yet on deliverable D9, whose final draft is planed for April 2003.

The goal of WP3 is to simulate the future continuous evolution of the biosphere system for a period of 200 ky AP under three different CO2 scenarios (namely a natural scenario and two combined natural + anthropogenic scenarios with either a low or high fossil fuel contribution). In this purpose, two Earth models of Intermediate Complexity are being used : MoBidiC (developed by UCL/ASTR) and CLIMBER (developed by PIK, Germany but adapted to BIOCLIM issues by LSCE/CEA). Progress has been substantial on the two models involved as follows.

MoBidiC : The full coupling between the atmosphere/ocean part of the model and the ice sheets has been performed. Preliminary experiments over the last glacial-interglacial cycle have been realised, as well as forward calculations using CO2 concentrations obtained from the Vostock record. MoBidiC is now ready to perform BIOCLIM experiments. For future simulations, the model will use CO2 concentrations outlined in Deliverable D3, experiment 4b.

CLIMBER : The ocean/atmosphere/vegetation model has been coupled to the northern hemisphere ice-sheet model of Grenoble called GREMLINS. The coupled model has been tested against past interglacial periods such as 6 ky BP, 126 ky BP and the Last Glacial Maximum with the Peltier ice reconstruction. Results being satisfactory, work has also begun on the BIOCLIM future CO2 forcings.

Deliverable D7 will provide a detailed description of the development of MoBidiC and CLIMBER models within the BIOCLIM project.

In terms of downscaling, it was decided at the last BIOCLIM progress meeting that only outputs from MoBidiC would be downscalled. A ten-step methodology has been devised. The first 5 steps have been completed for most of the regions of interest. The rest of this work is currently on-going.
Deliverable D8 will presents this methodology.

Work package 4 Activities :

Technical work for Work Package 4 (WP4) has now officially started, although a good deal of planning and methodology work has already been undertaken. The WP4 methodology to be applied has been presented in a document entitled " BIOCLIM WP4 : Proposals for the Programme of Work to be undertaken ". Three deliverables will present WP4 results (D10 to D12). At the last BIOCLIM progress meeting it was decided that these deliverables would be combined in just one, whose final draft is expected for August 2003. More precisely, the third parts of this deliverable will present the :

• Approach to the application of long-term climate model outputs to discrete biosphere systems for the three regions and the time scales of interest (D10).
• Methodology for addressing transitional biosphere systems (D11).
• Reference biosphere system descriptions using discrete and transitional methods and approaches for developing relevant conceptual models for use in PAs (D12).

The overall aim of WP4 is to explore and evaluate the potential effects of projected climate change on the nature of biosphere systems associated with identified regions in Europe, taking into account their possible implications for the long-term safety performance of hypothetical radioactive waste disposal systems. In more details WP4 will :

• Provide a context for the synthesis of data from other work packages that will be useful in Performance Assessments (PAs);
• Show how those data are used to inform the development of biosphere system descriptions appropriate to PAs;
• Investigate the potential radiological significance of transitions between different climatic states;
• Develop biosphere descriptions appropriate to selected climate states and transitions, and recommend how to derive conceptual models for radiological impact assessment;
• Develop recommendations on how the effects of climate change on the biosphere can be taken into account in PAs.

Inputs from WP1, WP2 and WP3 will provide a climatological context for describing the likely environmental evolution of the hypothetical repository sites of interest in the United Kingdom, France and Spain. WP2 and WP3 inputs are expected at the latest in April 2003. As a first exercise, an outline of the potential climatic and landscape evolution of Central England over the next 200 ky AP has been developed using one of the first WP2 numerical experiment : the LLN 2D NH climatic scenario. Such an exercise is currently completed for France and Spain and will have to be reviewed when the other BIOCLIM models outputs will be available.

Work package 5 Activities :

Work Package 5 activities are associated with the organisation of the final seminar and the production of the seminar proceedings. It has been suggested to hold a joint final seminar together with a brother project, the BioMoSA european project, that will be completed at the same time as BIOCLIM and that is addressing complementary technical issues. The BIOCLIM-BioMoSA final seminar will take place the 27-28 November 2003 in Luxembourg-Kirchberg.

It is a major concern of all participants that the work of the project should be available to as wide an audience as possible. The proceedings of the final seminar, including results from climate model developments and the application of the different methods developed during the project for use in radiological PAs (Deliverable D13) will be disposed on this web site, as all others BIOCLIM deliverables.
Representatives of other organisations have already expressed their desire to obtain results from the BIOCLIM project.

- " Reporting period October 2000 - April 2001 "
- " Reporting period April 2001 - September 2001 "
- " Reporting period October 2001 - March 2002 "
- " Reporting period April 2002 - September 2002 "
- " Reporting period October 2002 - December 2003 "