Wim Thiery

Vrije Universiteit Brussel | VUB · Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering (HYDR)

Fire behaviour is changing in many regions worldwide. However, nonlinear interactions between fire weather, fuel, land use, management and ignitions have impeded formal attribution of global burned area changes. Here, we demonstrate that climate change increasingly explains regional burned area patterns, using an ensemble of global fire models. The...

Background Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) can substantially affect climate through biogeochemical and biogeophysical effects. Here, we examine the future temperature–mortality impact for two contrasting LULCC scenarios in a background climate of low greenhouse gas concentrations. The first LULCC scenario implies a globally sustainable land...

Water scarcity is exacerbated by rising water use and climate change, yet state-of-the-art Earth system models typically do not represent human water demand. Here we present an enhancement to the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and its land (CLM5) and river (MOSART) components by introducing sectoral water abstractions. The new module enables a...

The field of extreme event attribution (EEA) has rapidly developed over the last two decades. Various methods have been developed and implemented, physical modelling capabilities have generally improved, the field of impact attribution has emerged, and assessments serve as a popular communication tool for conveying how climate change is influencing...

Irrigation rapidly expanded during the 20th century, thereby affecting climate via changes in water, energy, and biogeochemical cycling. Previous assessments of these historical climate effects of irrigation expansion predominantly relied on a single Earth System Model, and therefore suffered from structural model uncertainties. Here we quantify th...

Land-cover and land management changes (LCLMCs) have a substantial impact on the global carbon budget and, consequently, global climate. However, LCLMCs also influence climate by altering the surface energy balance, namely biogeophysical (BGP) effects. BGP effects act locally, but also nonlocally through advection or atmospheric circulation changes...

Landslides and flash floods are geomorphic hazards (GH) that often co-occur and interact and frequently lead to societal and environmental impact. The compilation of detailed multi-temporal inventories of GH events over a variety of contrasting natural as well as human-influenced landscapes is essential to understanding their behavior in both space...

Extreme event attribution assesses how anthropogenic climate change affected an extreme climate event, but typically focuses on individual events. Here, we systematize this approach, and apply it to 187 historical heatwaves reported over the period 2000-2022. We show that climate change has made all these heatwaves more likely and more intense. In...

The field of extreme event attribution (EEA) has rapidly developed over the last two decades. Various methods have been developed and implemented, physical modelling capabilities have generally improved, the field of impact attribution has emerged, and assessments serve as a popular communication tool for conveying how climate change is influencing...

To better understand how extreme climate events impact society, we need to increase the availability of accurate and comprehensive information about these impacts. We propose a method for building large-scale databases of climate extreme impacts from online textual sources, using LLMs for information extraction in combination with more traditional...

Current emissions trends are likely to deplete a 1.5°C consistent carbon budget soon after the year 2030, resulting in a period of overshoot. To navigate responsibilities for and during this period we contrast ‘fair’ allocations of a remaining carbon budget with projected carbon emissions trends until net-zero. We term this measure the ‘net-zero ca...

Numerical models are simplified representations of the real world at a finite level of complexity. Global water models are used to simulate the global water cycle and their outputs contribute to the evaluation of important natural and societal issues, including water availability, flood risk and ecological functioning. Whilst global water modelling...

Co-occurring extreme climate events exacerbate adverse impacts on humans, the economy, and the environment relative to extremes occurring in isolation. While changes in the frequency of individual extreme events have been researched extensively, changes in their interactions, dependence, and joint occurrence have received far less attention, partic...

Water scarcity is often triggered by shifting climate patterns as well as rising water usage, yet state-of-the-art Earth system models typically do not represent human water demand. Here we present an enhancement to the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and its land (CLM) and river (MOSART) components by introducing sectoral water abstractions. T...

Land cover and land management changes (LCLMCs) play an important role in achieving low-end warming scenarios through land-based mitigation. However, their effects on moisture fluxes and recycling remain uncertain, although they have important implications for the future viability of such strategies. Here, we analyse the impact of idealized LCLMC s...

Heavy rainfall in eastern Africa between late 2019 and mid 2020 caused devastating floods and landslides throughout the region. These rains drove the levels of Lake Victoria to a record-breaking maximum in the second half of May 2020. The combination of high lake levels, consequent shoreline flooding, and flooding of tributary rivers caused hundred...

West Nile virus (WNV) is an emerging mosquito-borne pathogen in Europe where it represents a new public health threat. While climate change has been cited as a potential driver of its spatial expansion on the continent, a formal evaluation of this causal relationship is lacking. Here, we investigate the extent to which WNV spatial expansion in Euro...

Increasing renewable sources in the energy mix is essential to mitigate climate change, not least in countries where the energy demand is likely to rise over the coming decades to reduce or even skip durations of time where fossils dominate. For Africa, solar photovoltaic (PV) and inland wind energy, combined with hydropower, provide significant an...

Africa depends on its water resources for hydroelectricity, inland fisheries and water supply for domestic, industrial and agricultural operations. Anthropogenic climate change (CC) has changed the state of these water resources. Land use and land cover have also undergone significant changes due to the need to provide resources to a growing popula...

This paper describes the rationale and the protocol of the first component of the third simulation round of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP3a, http://www.isimip.org, last access: 2 November 2023) and the associated set of climate-related and direct human forcing data (CRF and DHF, respectively). The observation-based...

Land cover and land management changes (LCLMCs) play an important role in achieving low-end warming scenarios through land-based mitigation. However, their effects on moisture fluxes and recycling remain uncertain although they have important implications for the future viability of such strategies. Here, we analyse the impact of idealised LCLMC sc...

This file is the Electronic Supplemental Material (ESM) of this MS: Plisnier, P.-D., Kayanda, R., MacIntyre, S., Obiero, K., Okello, W., Vodacek, A., Cocquyt, C., Abegaz, H., Achieng, A., Akonkwa, B., Albrecht, C., Balagizi, C., Barasa, J., Bashonga, R.A., Bishobibiri A.B., Bootsma, H., Borges, A.V., Chavula, G., Dadi, T., De Keyzer, E.L.R., Doran,...

To ensure the long-term sustainable use of African Great Lakes (AGL), and to better understand the functioning of these ecosystems, authorities, managers and scientists need regularly collected scientific data and information of key environmental indicators over multi-years to make informed decisions. Monitoring is regularly conducted at some sites...

Global water models are increasingly used to understand past, present and future water cycles, but disagreements between simulated variables make model-based inferences uncertain. Although there is empirical evidence of different large-scale relationships in hydrology, these relationships are rarely considered in model evaluation. Here we evaluate...

Heavy rainfall in East Africa between late 2019 and mid 2020 caused devastating floods and landslides throughout the region. These rains drove the levels of Lake Victoria to a record-breaking maximum in the second half of May 2020. The combination of high lake levels, consequent shoreline flooding, and flooding of tributary rivers caused hundreds o...

The representation of heatwaves (HWs) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) models is analyzed. This study (a) evaluates the performance of CMIP6 simulations against global reanalysis and observations regarding time‐ and intensity‐related criteria and (b) investigates how HWs are projected to change at different global warmin...

Habitat degradation and climate change are globally acting as pivotal drivers of wildlife collapse, with mounting evidence that this erosion of biodiversity will accelerate in the following decades1–3. Here, we quantify the past, present and future ecological suitability of Europe for bumblebees, a threatened group of pollinators ranked among the h...

The present work addresses the physical properties of different drought types under near-future climates in the Mediterranean. To do so, we use a multi-model mean of the bias-adjusted and downscaled product of five Earth System Models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project—phase6 (CMIP6), provided by Inter-Sectoral Impact Model...

West Nile virus (WNV) is an important mosquito-borne pathogen in Europe and although the causal relationship between climate change and its emergence on the continent has been reported, it has not been formally evaluated. Here, we examine whether WNV establishment in Europe can be attributed to climate change. For this purpose, we train and project...

Across continental Africa, more than 300 new hydropower projects are under consideration to meet the future energy demand that is expected based on the growing population and increasing energy access. Yet large uncertainties associated with hydroclimatic and socioeconomic changes challenge hydropower planning. In this work, we show that only 40 to...

Land cover changes have been proposed to play a significant role, alongside emission reductions, in achieving the temperature goals agreed upon under the Paris Agreement. Such changes carry both global implications, pertaining to the biogeochemical effects of land cover change and thus the global carbon budget, and regional or local implications, p...

Concurrent extreme climate events exacerbate adverse impacts on humans, the economy, and the environment relative to extremes occurring in isolation. While changes in the frequency of individual extreme events have been researched extensively, changes in their interactions, dependence and joint occurrence have received far less attention, particula...

Fires are now raging longer and more intensely in many regions worldwide. However, non-linear interactions between fire weather, fuel, land use, management, and ignitions so far impeded formal attribution of global burned area changes. Here we show that climate change is increasingly explaining regional burned area patterns, using an ensemble of gl...

Irrigation accounts for ~70% of global freshwater withdrawals and ~90% of consumptive water use, driving myriad Earth system impacts. In this Review, we summarize how irrigation currently impacts key components of the Earth system. Estimates suggest that more than 3.6 million km2 of currently irrigated land, with hot spots in the intensively cultiv...

Land cover and land management change (LCLMC) has been highlighted for its critical role in mitigation scenarios, both in terms of global mitigation and local adaptation. Yet, the climate effect of individual LCLMC options, their dependence on the background climate and the local vs. non-local responses are still poorly understood across different...

Climate change can substantially affect temperature-related mortality and morbidity, especially under high greenhouse gas emission pathways. Achieving the Paris Agreement goals require not only drastic reductions in fossil fuel-based emissions but also land-use and land-cover changes (LULCC), such as reforestation and afforestation. LULCC has been...

Land cover and land management changes (LCLMCs) play an important role in achieving low-end warming scenarios through land-based mitigation. However, their effects on moisture fluxes and recycling remain uncertain although they have important implications for the future viability of such strategies. Here, we analyse the impact of idealised LCLMC sc...

Heat storage within the Earth system is a fundamental metric for understanding climate change. The current energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere causes changes in energy storage within the ocean, the atmosphere, the cryosphere, and the continental landmasses. After the ocean, heat storage in land is the second largest term of the Earth heat...

Africa depends on its water resources for hydroelectricity, inland fisheries, and water supply for domestic, industrial, and agricultural operations. Anthropogenic climate change (CC) has changed the state of these water resources. Land use and land cover has also undergone significant changes due to the need to provide resources to a growing popul...

Temperature targets of the Paris Agreement limit global net cumulative emissions to very tight carbon budgets. The possibility to overshoot the budget and offset near-term excess emissions by net-negative emissions is considered economically attractive as it eases near-term mitigation pressure. While potential side effects of carbon removal deploym...

Fires and their associated carbon and air pollutant emissions have a broad range of environmental and societal impacts, including negative effects on human health, damage to terrestrial ecosystems, and indirect effects that promote climate change. Previous studies investigated future carbon emissions from the perspective of response to climate chan...

The Earth climate system is out of energy balance, and heat has accumulated continuously over the past decades, warming the ocean, the land, the cryosphere, and the atmosphere. According to the Sixth Assessment Report by Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this planetary warming over multiple decades is human-driven an...

Global warming is expected to exacerbate heat stress. Additionally, biogeophysical effects of land cover and land management changes (LCLMC) could substantially alter temperature and relative humidity locally and non‐locally. Thereby, LCLMC could affect the occupational capacity to safely perform physical work under hot environments (labor capacity...

While high renewable electricity targets are feasible under current climatic conditions, planning the power sector from a long-term perspective requires great precaution, given the strong dependency of renewable energy potential on climate and potential future changes. Power balance optimization modelling is a powerful tool for adequate power syste...

Will a child born today experience more heatwaves, wildfires, or droughts compared to a 60-year-old? The answer to this question might seem obvious: “Yes, of course.” But when it comes to the question “How much more?” climate scientists did not have the answer—until recently. In this article, we will describe a study in which we figured out how man...

This paper describes the rationale and the protocol of the first component of the third simulation round of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP3a, 70 www.isimip.org) and the associated set of climate-related and direct human forcing data (CRF and DHF, respectively). The observation-based climate-related forcings for the...

Land cover and land management change (LCLMC) has been highlighted for its critical role in mitigation scenarios, both in terms of global mitigation and local adaptation. Yet, the climate effect of individual LCLMC options, their dependence on the background climate and the local vs. non-local responses are still poorly understood across different...

In this paper, we project future changes in the hydrodynamics of Lake Tanganyika under a high emission scenario using the three-dimensional (3D) version of the Second-generation Louvain-la-Neuve Ice-ocean Model (SLIM 3D) forced by a high-resolution regional climate model. We demonstrate the advantages of 3D simulation compared to 1D vertical models...

Several previous studies have highlighted the irrigation‐induced impacts on the global and regional water cycle, energy budget, and near‐surface climate. While land models are widely used to address this question, the implementations of irrigation in these models vary in complexity. Here, we expand the representation of irrigation in Community Land...

Global water models are widely used for policy-making and in scientific studies, but substantial inter-model differences highlight the need for additional evaluation. Here we evaluate global water models by assessing so-called functional relationships between system forcing and response variables. The more widely used comparisons between observed a...

Transformation pathways for the land sector in line with the Paris Agreement depend on the assumption of globally implemented greenhouse gas (GHG) emission pricing, and in some cases also on inclusive socio-economic development and sustainable land-use practices. In such pathways, the majority of GHG emission reductions in the land system is expect...

Land-use and land-cover changes (land use) alter climates biogeophysically by affecting surface fluxes of energy and water. Yet, near-surface temperature responses to land use across observational versus model-based studies and spatial-temporal scales can be inconsistent. Here we assess the prevalence of the historical land use signal of daily maxi...

Statistical and dynamical modelling techniques are used to downscale Global Climate Model (GCM) outputs to practical resolutions for local- or regional-scale applications. Current techniques do not incorporate the effects of land use and land cover changes (LULCC), although research has shown that such changes can substantially affect climate local...

Landslides and flash floods are geomorphic hazards (GHs) that often co-occur and interact. They generally occur very quickly, leading to catastrophic socioeconomic impacts. Understanding the temporal patterns of occurrence of GH events is essential for hazard assessment, early warning, and disaster risk reduction strategies. However, temporal infor...

The CORDEX Flagship Pilot Study ELVIC (climate Extremes in the Lake VICtoria basin) was recently established to investigate how extreme weather events will evolve in this region of the world and to provide improved information for the climate impact community. Here we assess the added value of the convection-permitting scale simulations on the repr...

Society is set to experience significant land cover changes in order to achieve the temperature goals agreed upon under the Paris Agreement. Such changes carry both global implications, pertaining to the biogeochemical effects of land cover change and thus the global carbon budget, and regional/local implications, pertaining to the biogeophysical e...

With solar and wind power generation reaching unprecedented growth rates globally, much research effort has recently gone into a comprehensive mapping of the worldwide potential of these variable renewable electricity (VRE) sources. From a perspective of energy systems analysis, the locations with the strongest resources may not necessarily be the...