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An empirical perspective for understanding climate change impacts in Switzerland

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Abstract

Planning for the future requires a detailed understanding of how climate change affects a wide range of systems at spatial scales that are relevant to humans. Understanding of climate change impacts can be gained from observational and reconstruction approaches and from numerical models that apply existing knowledge to climate change scenarios. Although modeling approaches are prominent in climate change assessments, observations and reconstructions provide insights that cannot be derived from simulations alone, especially at local to regional scales where climate adaptation policies are implemented. Here, we review the wealth of understanding that emerged from observations and reconstructions of ongoing and past climate change impacts in Switzerland, with wider applicability in Europe. We draw examples from hydrological, alpine, forest, and agricultural systems, which are of paramount societal importance, and are projected to undergo important changes by the end of this century. For each system, we review existing model-based projections, present what is known from observations, and discuss how empirical evidence may help improve future projections. A particular focus is given to better understanding thresholds, tipping points and feedbacks that may operate on different time scales. Observational approaches provide the grounding in evidence that is needed to develop local to regional climate adaptation strategies. Our review demonstrates that observational approaches should ideally have a synergistic relationship with modeling in identifying inconsistencies in projections as well as avenues for improvement. They are critical for uncovering unexpected relationships between climate and agricultural, natural, and hydrological systems that will be important to society in the future.

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Acknowledgements

This paper arose from workshops sponsored by the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Work Package 3, Climate Risks and Natural Hazards. We thank Heinz Wanner for his early support of this work. Erin Berryman, Todd Hawbaker, and two anonymous reviewers provided valuable comments on the manuscript. Jeremy Havens designed Fig. 2.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, P.O. Box 25046, Denver Federal Center, MS 980, Denver, CO, 80225, USA

    Paul D. Henne

  2. Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Paul D. Henne, Daniele Colombaroli, Urs Feller, Oliver Heiri & Willy Tinner

  3. Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Paul D. Henne, Daniele Colombaroli, Urs Feller, David Frank, Jürg Fuhrer, Martin Grosjean, Oliver Heiri, Ole Rössler, Christian Rohr, This Rutishauser, Margit Schwikowski, Andreas Stampfli, Sönke Szidat, Rolf Weingartner & Willy Tinner

  4. Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Moritz Bigalke, Martin Grosjean, Adrien Mestrot, Ole Rössler, This Rutishauser, Rolf Weingartner & Wolfgang Wilcke

  5. Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge, England

    Ulf Büntgen

  6. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Ulf Büntgen, David Frank & Andreas Rigling

  7. Global Change Research Centre and Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Ulf Büntgen

  8. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Insubric Ecosystems Research Group, Cadenazzo, Switzerland

    Marco Conedera

  9. Climate and Air Pollution Group, Agroscope, Zurich, Switzerland

    Jürg Fuhrer

  10. Department of Geography, Climatology, Climate Dynamics and Climate Change, and Centre for International Development and Environmental Research, Justus Liebig University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    Jürg Luterbacher

  11. Institute of History, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Christian Rohr

  12. Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, Bern, Switzerland

    This Rutishauser

  13. Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland

    Margit Schwikowski

  14. School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Zollikofen, Switzerland

    Andreas Stampfli

  15. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Sönke Szidat

  16. Centre Alpien de Phytogéographie Fondation J.-M. Aubert, & Section of Biology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Jean-Paul Theurillat

  17. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Geography & Geoecology, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Wolfgang Wilcke

Authors
  1. Paul D. Henne
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  2. Moritz Bigalke
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  3. Ulf Büntgen
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  4. Daniele Colombaroli
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  6. Urs Feller
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  7. David Frank
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  10. Oliver Heiri
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  13. Andreas Rigling
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  14. Ole Rössler
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  15. Christian Rohr
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  16. This Rutishauser
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  17. Margit Schwikowski
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  18. Andreas Stampfli
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  19. Sönke Szidat
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  20. Jean-Paul Theurillat
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  21. Rolf Weingartner
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  22. Wolfgang Wilcke
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  23. Willy Tinner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Paul D. Henne.

Additional information

Editor:Erica Smithwick.

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Henne, P.D., Bigalke, M., Büntgen, U. et al. An empirical perspective for understanding climate change impacts in Switzerland. Reg Environ Change 18, 205–221 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1182-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1182-9

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