Global and European temperature - outlook from UNFCCC

Indicator definition

The indicator shows the annual average temperature of the air, its development in a given period of time, and deviations from a long-term average in the country as a whole and in particular regions and municipalities.

Units

Degrees Celsius (°C).

Policy context and targets

Context description

Over a decade ago, most countries joined an international treaty -- the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) -- to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. Recently, a number of nations have approved an addition to the treaty: the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol, an international and legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gases emissions world wide, entered into force on February 16th 2005. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol shares the Convention's objective, principles and institutions, but significantly strengthens the Convention by committing Annex I Parties to individual, legally-binding targets to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

To date 40 countries in the Pan-European region ratified the Kyoto Protocol, notably:  Annex I: Belarus,Bulgaria,Croatia, Romania,  Russian Federation,Ukraine, EU 25. Non-Annex I countries:Albania,Armenia,Azerbaijan,Georgia,Kyrgyzstan, Former Yugoslavian Republic Macedonia,Republic ofMoldova,Turkmenistan, andUzbekistan.

Kazakhstanhas signed but not ratified the protocol. It expects to enter into quantitative GHG reduction obligations for the period of 2008-2012 and expects to become a full participant of the three Kyotomechanisms. (Strategy of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Climate Change).Bosnia and Herzegovina,Serbia andMontenegro,Tajikistan andTurkey have no commitments as they did not sign or ratify the Protocol.

At the EU level the aims for reduction of the impact on Climate is expressed in the EC 6th Environmental Action Programme, EC 2006 Green paper on energy and a number of Council Decisions (see policy targets).

EECCA Environmental Strategy emphasizes importance of measure in energy and transport sectors in order to reduce Climate Change.

Targets

Global level

The UNFCC Convention and the Kyoto Protocol do not put individual targets for global temperature but they provide general policy context.

EU level

To avoid serious climate change impacts, the European Council proposed in its sixth environmental action programme (6EAP, 2002), reaffirmed by the Environment Council and the European Council of 22-23 March 2005 (Presidency Conclusions, section IV(46)), that the global average temperature increase should be limited to not more than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels (about 1.3 degrees C above current global mean temperature). In addition, some studies have proposed a 'sustainable' target of limiting the rate of anthropogenic warming to 0.1 to 0.2 degrees C per decade (Leemans and Hootsman, 1998, WBGU, 2003).

The targets for both absolute temperature change (i.e. 2 degrees C) and rate of change (i.e. 0.1-0.2 degrees C per decade) were initially derived from the migration rates of selected plant species and the occurrence of past natural temperature changes. Although studies have indicated that such changes might still result in impacts in various vulnerable regions, both targets have been confirmed as (a) suitable (target) from both a scientific and a political perspective (e.g. Leemans and Hootsmans, 1998, WBGU, 2003).

The European Council of 8/9 March 2007 underlined the vital importance of achieving the strategic objective of limiting the global average temperature increase to not more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

EECCA level

EECCA Environmental Strategy does not set any specific targets which can be measured with the help of this indicator.

Related EECCA policy documents

Environmental Partnerships in the UNECE Region: Environment Strategy for Countries of Eastern Europe, Caucasus and central Asia

Related policy documents

No related policy documents have been specified

Methodology

Methodology for indicator calculation

Data for the projected temperature is extracted from the most recent National Communications submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and referes  in most cases to the baseline scenario (in some cases for the scenario with measures). Temperature is measured systematically by the institutions responsible for meteorology or hydrometeorology in countries. The best practices and concepts for climate monitoring developed in the framework of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS); the Guide to Meteorological Instruments and Methods of Observation prepared by the Main Geophysical Observatory in coordination with WMO. Climatic standards recommended by WMO are the calculated standards based on 30-year observation data (1961 - 1990).

Overview of the Projection Models

Projections of the temperature reported in the National Communications are calculated using a range of Global Climate Models (GCMs).

Mostly for all countries temperature projections are based on calculations carried out using HadCM3 model (Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3), developed by the Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom.

Scenarios and key assumptions

The National Communications present the three most common scenarios: a) baseline scenario or without measures scenario, b) with measures scenario or mitigation scenario, c) with additional measures scenario. These scenarios reflect various hypotheses related to economic growth, population growth, economic and policy development. They also reflect evolution of activities in the energy sector and other non-energy sectors, which contribute to GHG emissions.Each communication describes the national context for all three scenarios in detail.  

The baseline scenario includes all (and only) implemented and current policies and measures as for the time of the development of the national reports, i.g. no assumptions are made on the development and implementation of additional measures and policies in the time horizon considered. Therefore we used these data for our purposes.

Methodology for gap filling

National reports on Climate Change are not available for the following countries: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Tajikistan, Turkey. These countries are not parties of the Kyoto protocol (except Albania) and have no obligations to report to the convention. More detailed information about availability of the national reports can be found here.
The results of the research from individual countries or the projections done by global modeling can be used for gap filling . No gap filling was done at this stage of the project.

It is expected that the Russian Federation will submit its forth national communication in September/ October 2006. Thus there is currently no data on the temperature changes. It is possible to extract the data from the third national communication, but it will not include the current economic development in the Russian Federation and may result in bigger uncertainties in the assessment.

Methodology references

No methodology references available.

Uncertainties

Methodology uncertainty

Uncertainties in the projections in temperature have not been assessed. The methodology and quality of the data differs widely between countries.
Different countries use different methodologies to calculate their projections of the temperature. It is unclear to which extend the projections form different models are compatible. Simply to compare temperature for baseline scenario (and across different scenarios) for different countries is not sufficient to shed light on internal consistency, plausibility, and comparability of data and the assumptions behind the scenarios. Analysis of the underlying driving forces (population growth, economic growth, energy consumption, and energy and carbon intensities) should thus also be an important part of the evaluation. Some of these driving forces are specified as model inputs, and some are derived from model outputs, so it is necessary to determine the assumed relationships among the main driving forces.

Data sets uncertainty

1) The dates for submission of the National communications vary from 1998 (Armenia) to 2006 (Belarus, Ukraine, Russia). The models used for calculations of the projected temperature by different countries use different scenarios reflecting various hypotheses related to economic growth, population growth, policy development, evolution of activities in the energy sector and other non-energy sectors, which contribute to temperature and GHG emissions. The assumptions for the projection of GHG emission and temperature in the National Communications produced in the earlier days may not sufficiently reflect current developments of the countries and additional analysis might be needed. Some for example claim that economic growth in some EECCA and SEE countries was not as high as it was expected and thus the projections of GHG emissions  and temperature reported in the communications are higher than the current emission levels.

2) The dates for when simulations were run are unclear. It is however possible to asses the period of the simulation by date of publication of the national communications and the base year used for simulations which are presented in the table below.

Rationale uncertainty

The observed increase in average air temperature, particularly during the recent decades, is one of the clearest signals of global climate change

The indicator shows trends in temperature data over time. Temperature is directly linked to the question of climate change and is a state variable that changes in response to the pressures of global warming.

There is growing evidence that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are (mostly) responsible for the recently observed fast increases in average temperature. Natural factors like volcanoes and sun activity could explain to a large extent the temperature variability up to mid of the 20th century, but they can explain only a small part of the recent warming.