Levent Kurnaz

• Ph. D. Physics
• Managing Director at Boğaziçi University

The effects of climate change may manifest themselves in different ways, but when it comes to coastal tourism, extreme temperatures, which are the unavoidable consequences of climate change, come to the fore. The study examined the changes that extreme temperatures can make on major coastal tourism destinations by using such indices as hot summer d...

Climate change affects the comfort level of tourists visiting coastal areas. Researching these impacts is important for a more comprehensive understanding of climate change and for developing effective adaptation solutions. Considering this fact, the study derived the Holiday Climate Index (HCI: Coast, HCI: Urban, and HCI: Combined) in the Mediterr...

The study investigated the impact of climate and land cover change on water quality. The novel contribution of the study was to investigate the individual and combined impacts of climate and land cover change on water quality with high spatial and temporal resolution in a basin in Turkey. The global circulation model MPI-ESM-MR was dynamically down...

The impacts of climate change and the extent of their consequences exhibit regional variability. The negative effects of climate change on the tourism industry require a comprehensive examination of the vulnerabilities of tourism–dependent countries. Considering that the tourism sector is an important source of income for these countries, it is imp...

Extreme temperature events have traditionally been detected assuming a unimodal distribution of temperature data. We found that surface temperature data can be described more accurately with a multimodal rather than a unimodal distribution. Here, we applied Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) to daily near‐surface maximum air temperature data from the hi...

When the regional and sectoral impacts caused by climate change are evaluated with different levels of vulnerability, the climate change risks that each region and sector may be exposed also vary. It can be expected that the risk posed by climate change on human comfort, especially due to heat stress, may significantly affect coastal tourism, one o...

This work investigates the scalability of extreme temperatures over the European domain with global warming levels. We have used the EURO-CORDEX ensemble of regional model simulations at 0.11° resolution for daily minimum and maximum temperatures to analyze future changes in extreme weather daily events. Scaling with the annual mean global warming...

Küresel iklim endişe verici bir hızla değişmeye devam ederken, tüm ülkeler bu olgunun ortaya çıkardığı çok yönlü zorluklarla boğuşuyor. Bu makale, Türkiye'nin devam eden iklim değişikliğine uyum süreçlerinin bir analizini sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Avrupa ve Asya'nın kavşağında yer alan Türkiye, farklı coğrafyası ve iklim yapısı nedeniyle iklim değişi...

Extreme temperature events have traditionally been detected assuming a unimodal distribution of temperature data. We found that surface temperature data can be described more accurately with a multimodal rather than a unimodal distribution. Here, we applied Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) to daily near-surface maximum air temperature data from the hi...

Renewable energy is a cornerstone in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and, accordingly, mitigating changes in the global climate system. Wind energy is becoming more common among all renewable energy sources used for electricity generation in terms of generation capacity, rapid growth and technological maturity. The share of wind energy in Türkiye...

Temperature is the most important factor influencing grapevine phenology and yield. Various indices have been developed that deal with the temperature sums that grapevines are exposed to during growth and maturation. With the help of these indices, predictions are made about whether the grapes will grow in a certain region and the quality of the gr...

Particularly due to its arid and semi-arid nature, the environmental, ecological and socio-economic systems of Central Asia are under serious threat of climate change. Depending on the climate change in Central Asia, water resources spread over limited physiographic regions in the domain, grasslands and related livestock are the elements that will...

Globally, each region will be affected by climate change at different risk levels depending on various indicators (e.g., increased average temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, and extreme climate events such as floods, droughts, and wildfires). Therefore, identifying the “hotspots” that will be the most affected areas by climate change...

Energy consumption in buildings accounts for a notable part of the primary energy consumption all over the world. The building industry also has a great potential to decrease the environmental impact by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The national strategies of many developing countries are shaped by energy conservation issues. Improving energy...

The collaboration between the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) and the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) provides open access to an unprecedented ensemble of Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations, across the 14 CORDEX continental-scale domains, with global coverage. These simulations have been used as a new line of...

Temperature is the most important factor influencing grapevine phenology and yield. Various indices have been developed that deal with the temperature sums that grapevines are exposed to during growth and maturation. With the help of these indices, predictions are made about whether the grapes will grow in a certain region and the quality of the gr...

Concepts of the circular economy and bioeconomy have come to the forefront in the past decade as a means to maximize biomass or raw material use, reutilize by‐products, waste and bio‐waste, as well as to reduce demand for fossil fuels or maximize resource efficiency. Several strategies have been designed to that effect, such as biomass cascading fo...

Cherry (Prunus avium L.) is one of the most important export crops in Turkey and Turkey has a globally significant share in cherry production with 26%. Although cherry is mostly a temperate climate fruit, different types can be grown in the regions with climate and vegetation diversities. However, it is possible to talk about irregularities and dec...

Although there are increasingly various studies within the frame of CORDEX initiative, most of these studies mainly focus on the domains of Africa, Europe, and the Mediterranean. Therefore, this study presents the regional climate projections for the CORDEX-Australasia domain using RegCM4.6. Projected changes in merely mean temperature and precipit...

Hem küresel hem de bölgesel çapta etkilerini gün geçtikçe daha da ağır bir biçimde hissettiren iklim değişikliği, küresel önlemlerin alınmasını gerektirmektedir. Bu anlamda AB Yeşil Mutabakatı (AYM) ve Sürdürülebilir Kalkınma Amaçları (SKA) son yılların en çok yankı uyandıran nitelikli iklim değişikliğini azaltım çağrıları olarak düşünülebilir. Bu...

It is inevitable that each sector has a distinct vulnerability to climate change in divergent dimensions with different aspects. When health, social, cultural, and economic components are considered together, the vulnerability of the sports sector to climate change cannot be ignored in terms of its mass impact. Thus, it is estimated that profession...

Birçok ülke küresel iklim değişikliğinin etkilerine farklı seviyelerde maruz kalmakta ve bu ülkelerin bazı sosyoekonomik ve çevresel faktörlere dayalı etkilenebilirlik seviyeleri değişiklik gösterebilmektedir. Özellikle bireyler, toplumlar ve ülkelerin iklim değişikliğinin etki ve risklerine ne kadar açık olduğu, etkilenebilirlik seviyeleri ve onla...

The economic value of medicinal and aromatic plants as well as other bioresources have been exploited for centuries, more recently on an industrial scale, and their impact on human health indicates an ever-increasing demand on medicinal bioresources and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. The industrial production of medicinal ingredi...

Gelişmiş ülkelerde son 30 yıldaki nüfus artışının ana kaynağını göç oluşturmaktadır. Görünen o ki son yıllarda iklim değişikliğinin neden olduğu çevresel bozulma ile ortaya çıkan iklim mültecisi sorunu, çağımızın en önemli insani krizlerinden biri olma yolundadır. Bununla birlikte, “çevresel mülteci” ve “iklim mültecisi” konularında uluslararası ka...

Global warming is likely to cause a progressive drought increase in some regions, but how population and natural resources will be affected is still underexplored. This study focuses on global population, forests, croplands and pastures exposure to meteorological drought hazard in the 21st century, expressed as frequency and severity of drought eve...

The accuracy of the climate impact models depends on the representative power of the climate model used in the analysis. Many problems in these impact models can be eliminated by the selection of the appropriate climate models as an input. The main purpose of this research is to find a methodology to select the more representative climate models. I...

In this study, projected changes in climate extreme indices defined by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices were investigated over Middle East and North Africa. Changes in the daily maximum and minimum temperature- and precipitation- based extreme indices were analyzed for the end of the 21st century compared to the reference per...

Climate is a crucial factor for agricultural production and productivity. Foreseeing climate change in the future means predicting the possible effects on agriculture, and such studies observing year-dependent variability and predicting the effects of the near and mid-future climate change are valuable for both food security and economic value espe...

Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) is one of the most important export crops in Turkey and Turkey is the leader for both fresh and dried apricots production in the world. Apricot can be grown in all regions of Turkey with climate and vegetation diversities, except in the Eastern Black Sea Region and in the high plateaus of the East Anatolian Region. Mal...

Global climate projections suggest a significant intensification of summer heat extremes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). To assess regional impacts, and underpin mitigation and adaptation measures, robust information is required from climate downscaling studies, which has been lacking for the region. Here, we project future hot spells b...

Climatology has increasingly become an important discipline for understanding tourism and recreation, especially in the era of contemporary climate change. Climate indices, in this respect, have been useful tools to yield the climatic attractiveness of tourism destinations as well as in understanding their altering suitability to various tourism ty...

Tourism is a major socioeconomic contributor to established and emerging destinations in the Mediterranean region. Recent studies introducing the Holiday Climate Index (HCI) highlight the significance of climate as a factor in sustaining the competitiveness of coastal and urban destinations. The aim of this study is to assess the future HCI perform...

Climatology has increasingly become an important discipline for understanding tourism and recreation, especially in the era of contemporary climate change. Climate indices, in this respect, have been useful tools to yield the climatic attractiveness of tourism destinations as well as in understanding their altering suitability to various tourism ty...

The impacts of climate change on hazelnut production in Turkey-the world's largest producer and exporter-may significantly affect the global hazelnut market depending on production and yield change. In this paper, based on gridded climate data with a 10-km horizontal resolution from regional climate model RegCM4.4 under the RCP8.5 business-as-usual...

Two questions motivated this study: 1) Will meteorological droughts become more frequent and severe during the 21 st century? 2) Given the projected global temperature rise, to what extent does the inclusion of temperature (in addition to precipitation) in drought indicators, play a role in future meteorological droughts? To answer, we analyzed the...

Along with climate change, there has been a significant increase in the number of forest fires in the Mediterranean Basin in recent years. These fires cause more damages to forests than natural disasters. While some of the fires are caused by natural due to increasing arid weather conditions, the other part emerges as a result of negligence or inte...

In this chapter, changes in seasonal precipitation climatology, extreme weather conditions, and aridity conditions of Turkey are evaluated for the period of 2021–2050 with respect to the reference period of 1971–2000 by using regional climate model simulations. Projections of future climate conditions are modeled by forcing Regional Climate Model,...

Summer tourism in the Mediterranean Basin is one of the most important contributors to the countries’ GDPs, and is highly dependent on the climatic conditions. In this study, it is aimed to determine the exposures of the most visited touristic resources in the Mediterranean Basin via Tourism Climate Index [1] which is an ideal indicator of tourism...

5-year temperature anomalies from 1970-2000 base

İklim değişikliğinin etkisiyle ısıtma ve soğutmaya bağlı gelecekteki enerji talebi ihtiyacında oluşabilecek değişikliklerin öngörülmesinde gün derecelerinden faydalanılması en pratik yöntemlerden biri olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır. Bu çalışmada günümüzdeki gibi yoğun sera gazı emisyonunu içeren RCP8.5 senaryosuna göre Türkiye’de iklim değişikliğiyle bi...

İklim değişikliği günümüzde tüm dünya üzerinde etkili olmakla birlikte özellikle gelişmekte olan ülkelerde bölgesel bazda daha önemli etkilere sahip, gelecekte de ekosistem hizmetleri aracılığıyla insanlığı ciddi şekilde tehdit etme potansiyeli bulunan küresel bir sorundur. İklim değişikliğine büyük ölçüde insan aktivitelerinin yol açtığı düşünüldü...

This book aims to update the last volume, Disappearing Destinations (2011), and presents new cases that discuss current threats and consequences of climate change predictions on coastal tourism destinations. In this context, predicted changes and implications for management and policy at such destinations are assessed. The book chapters are divided...

Özet İklim üzerindeki insan etkisi, insanlığın sosyo-ekonomik gelişimini sağlayan ekonomik faaliyetlerden kaynaklanmaktadır. Bu faaliyetlerin ana kaynağını fosil yakıt kullanımı oluşturmaktadır. Yoğun fosil yakıt kullanımı en önemli sera gazı olan karbondioksitin atmosferdeki miktarını arttırmaktadır. Bu durum yerkürenin ısınmasına ve iklim değişik...

CORDEX-Australasia is a vast domain where comprises primarily Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea whilst it also covers the islands in the Pacific Ocean such as New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu as well. Climate of Australasia varies from tropical monsoonal and arid to moist temperate and alpine. The number of studies about t...

After the Paris Agreement, the studies considering the possible impacts of climate change with the high-level mitigation efforts have become very crucial. In this study, the multi-model ensemble approach was conducted in order to investigate the projected changes in air temperature and precipitation climatology over the CORDEX-Australasia domain ba...

Climate change has negative impacts on Central Asia’s environment, socio-economic and ecological systems. The change in precipitation pattern of the region is a direct consequence of the climate change. In this study, the main purpose is to determine future spatial distributions of extreme precipitation events over the CORDEX-Central Asia domain. F...

This work investigated projected future changes in seasonal mean air temperature (°C) and precipitation (mm/day) climatology for the three periods of 2011–2040, 2041–2070, and 2071–2100, with respect to the control period of 1971–2000 for the Central Asia domain via regional climate model simulations. In order to investigate the projected changes i...

Within the scope of this study we report the formation of a cylindrical sand pile in a container rotating around a vertical axis. A steady stream of dry sand is poured off-rotation-axis in a cylindrical acrylic glass container, which is partially filled with water. Due to the centrifugal force at a certain angular velocity, water forms a truncated...

Wind energy is one of the major clean and sustainable energy sources. Beside its various advantages, wind energy has a downside that its performance cannot be projected very accurately in the long-term. In this study, we offer an alternative method which can be used to determine the best location to install a wind turbine in a large area aiming max...

Natural hazards are defined as extreme events that threat people, their homes and their neighborhoods. They damage housing, food production system and other infrastructures. The frequency of natural hazards namely drought, floods can influence the residential decision-making and can cause substantial residential mobility by affecting relatively gre...

The Middle East is one of the most vulnerable regions to the impacts of climate change. Because of the importance of the region and its vulnerability to global climate change, the studies including the investigation of projected changes in the climate of the Middle East play a crucial role in order to struggle with the negative effects of climate c...

As a consequence of the negative impacts of climate change, Turkey is under risk of an increased drought conditions. In this study, we aim to detect the possible changes in the intensity and frequency of drought conditions and to identify the spatial and temporal distributions of these changes throughout the country. Therefore, firstly the outputs...

Classification and clustering are important issues in climatology studies for water management. In this study, we examine the precipitation regions of Turkey with combination of the regional climate model outputs with a hierarchical cluster technique. Therefore, the outputs of the HadGEM2-ES global climate model of the Met Office Hadley Centre were...

Many ski resorts worldwide are going through deteriorating snow cover conditions due to anthropogenic warming trends. As the natural and the artificially supported, i.e., technical, snow reliability of ski resorts diminish, the industry approaches a deadlock. For this reason, impact assessment studies have become vital for understanding vulnerabili...

İklim değişikliği, dünyada 80 ülkeye yayılan 6.000'e yakın kayak alanı için öncelikli bir tehdit haline gelmiştir. Enlem ve yükselti avantajı bulunmayan kayak merkezlerinde iklim değişikliğinin etkileri şimdiden gözlemlenmeye başlamış, nispeten avantajlı merkezler için ise geleceğe yönelik senaryo çalışmaları hız kazanmıştır. Bu tür çalışmalar, bir...

The changes in extreme events caused by climate change have the greatest impact on agricultural sector specifically crop yield. Therefore, it requires a clear understanding of how extreme events affect the crop yield and how it causes high economic losses. In this research, we cover the relationship between extreme events and the crop yield in Turk...

Climate change has been and increasingly will be a major threat to the ski tourism industry, whose survival is highly dependent on the existence of snow cover of sufficient depth and duration. For this matter, it is even now more usual for the ski resorts to adapt to this issue by various measures at the technical, operational, and political levels...

Cultural heritage is the patrimony of Turkey. Above its intrinsic value, cultural heritage is a major driver of the Turkish economy. But this invaluable heritage is fragile. Climate change is one of the most important issues of the 21 st century. As a result of the increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere since...

Climate change is mainly the change in surface temperature and precipitation as a result of the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In this study, we investigated future changes in seasonal temperature and precipitation climatology of the Mediterranean Domain region for three periods of 2010 – 2040, 2040 – 2070 and 2070 – 2100 with resp...

In this work, projected future changes in mean surface air temperature and precipitation climatology, inter-annual and seasonal variability and climatic aridity/humidity conditions for the period 2010-2100 over the large Central Asia region with respect to present climate (from 1970 to 2000) were simulated based on the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission sc...

Climate change has been and increasingly will be a major threat to the ski tourism industry whose survival is highly dependent on the existence of snow cover of sufficient depth and duration. For this matter, it is now even more usual for the ski resorts to adapt to this issue by various measures at the technical, operational and political levels....

Snow sports based winter tourism development in Turkey is going under a rapid transformation with various public authorities and private entrepreneurs engaged in the proposal and the building of many ski resorts and areas throughout the country. Among the major actors of such growth are the central government, when it comes to the planning of touri...

This paper emphasizes the relationship between climate change and crop yield in Turkey and discusses how the variables representing the climate change impacts affect the regional crop yield in Turkey. The impacts of climate change are represented as the function of vulnerability for the period of 1980-2010. There are 2 steps in this research. First...

Nature-based tourism is one of the most vulnerable sectors of the economy against climate change. Among its types, winter tourism stands out as the most critical due to the relatively high exposure and sensitivity of snow cover to the anthropogenic warming trends. In this study, we aim at improving previous works by Ozturk et al. where snow reliabi...

This paper emphasizes the relationship between climate change and crop yield in Turkey and discusses how the variables representing the climate change impacts affect the regional crop yield in Turkey. The impacts of climate change are represented as the function of vulnerability for the period of 1980-2010. There are 2 steps in this research. First...

This paper emphasizes the relationship between climate change and crop yield in Turkey and discusses how the variables representing the climate change impacts affect the regional crop yield in Turkey. The impacts of climate change are represented as the function of vulnerability for the period of 1980-2010. There are 2 steps in this research. First...

In this study, the projected changes for the periods of 2016 – 2035, 2046 – 2065, and 2081 – 2100 in the seasonal averages of air temperature and precipitation variables with respect to the reference period of 1981 - 2000 were examined for the Middle East and North Africa region. In this context, Regional Climate Model (RegCM4.3.5) of ICTP (Interna...

The Mediterranean Basin is one of the regions that shall be affected most by the impacts of the future climate changes on hydrology and water resources. In this study, projected future changes in mean air temperature and precipitation climatology and inter-annual variability over the Mediterranean region were studied. For performing this aim, the f...

In this work, projected future changes in mean surface air temperature and precipitation climatology, inter-annual and seasonal variability and climatic aridity/humidity conditions for the period 2070-2100 over the large Central Asia region with respect to present climate (from 1970 to 2000) were simulated based on the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission sc...

In this work, projected future changes in mean surface air temperature and precipitation climatology, inter-annual and seasonal variability and climatic aridity/humidity conditions for the period 2070-2100 over the large Central Asia region with respect to present climate (from 1970 to 2000) were simulated based on the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission sc...

A multi-model ensemble mean approach was followed in order to investigate the projected changes in near surface air temperatures and precipitation total over the Mediterranean region. Among sixty seven different models of thirty modeling groups all around the world participating in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomp...

This paper emphasizes the relationship between climate change and crop yield in Turkey and discusses how the variables representing the climate change impacts affect the regional crop yield in Turkey. The impacts of climate change are represented as the function of vulnerability for the period of 1980-2010. There are 2 steps in this research. First...

Projected future changes in mean air temperature and precipitation for 2020 – 2050 were assessed with respect to the control period 1970 – 2000 via regional climate model simulations, using a regional climate model driven by three different global climate models, dynamically downscaled to 50 km for Turkey and surrounding regions, using the IPCC emi...

Abstract In this study, projected future changes for the period of 2020 – 2050 in mean air temperature and precipitation climatology and year-to-year variability with respect to the control period of 1970 – 2000 were investigated for the domain of Turkey via regional climate model simulations. In order to investigate the projected changes in near f...

In this research, we aim to make an alternative contribution to the studies about the prediction of solar power potential. As is well known, the largest contribution to the current climate change comes from the energy sector. In order to cope with global climate change, we have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions mainly in the fossil fuel-based...

Climate change has been and increasingly will be a major threat to the ski tourism industry whose survival is highly dependent on existence of snow cover of sufficient depth and duration. The common knowledge requires that in order for a ski resort to be viable, it has to perform operations for at least 100 days in seven out of ten winters. For thi...

In this study, we conducted a multi-model ensemble mean approach in order to investigate the projected changes in surface air temperatures and precipitation totals over Central Asia. Even though there are totally sixty seven different models of thirty modeling groups all around the world participating in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)...

In this study, projected future changes for the period of 2020 – 2050 in mean air temperature and precipitation climatology and year-to-year variability with respect to the control period of 1970 – 2000 were investigated for the domain of Turkey via regional climate model simulations. In order to investigate the projected changes in near future cli...

In this study, projected future changes for the period of 2020 – 2050 in mean air temperature and precipitation climatology and year-to-year variability with respect to the control period of 1970 – 2000 were investigated for the domain of Turkey via regional climate model simulations. In order to investigate the projected changes in near future cli...

In this study, simulation data set from ENSEMBLE project is used to set up a statistical model to estimate the yield of crops according to climatic variables and conditions. We chose fig as an example crop. Fig is grown around Aydın in Turkey. The number of days above 40°C between June and October, the number of days below −1°C between October and...

İklim değişikliği 21. yüzyılda insanoğlunun yüz yüze geldiği en büyük sorunların başında gelerek, doğal ekosistemin ve insan neslinin devamlılığının sağlanmasında ciddi sosyal ve ekonomik sonuçlara yol açabilecek bir tehdit olarak değerlendirilmektedir. Yer kürenin ortalama yüzey sıcaklığının artmasının Dünya üzerinde her bölgeyi kendine has iklim...