A climate impact assessment for the future of Greece and its adaptation capacity as influenced by socio-economic factors

Abstract: The occurrence of climate change will have a significant impact on society and adapting to a more sustainable environment is of key importance. The dangers of climate change will include temperature and precipitation patterns becoming more extreme creating a substantial impact on society. Greece’s location and climate make it particularly vulnerable to a changing climate and climate impact assessments will become increasingly valuable for enhancing Greece’s adaptability to the effects in the future. This study uses two separate climate models with the latest CORDEX data, inputted with a set of climate indices in order to assess the potential future characteristics of both temperature and precipitation for the whole of Greece and to recognise any patterns in the modelled outputs. Both climate models displayed an increase in both the occurrence of extreme temperature and an increase in the consecutive number of days by which these temperatures are seen. The majority of model simulations displayed a substantial increase between different time periods, often the occurrence of ‘extreme events’ in one time period became a normality and average event in the following time period. Drastic increases were also displayed from the near future to the far future. These scenarios provide an overall image of how climate change may impact the country of Greece, the impacts will be quite significant, particularly for various different sectors such as the tourism industry. Water and energy will be placed under a particularly high demand should the climate effects become apparent, therefore carefully planning adaptation strategies to reduce the overall damage inflicted to Greece will become an important field to consider.