Mass Movement Processes Under Changing Climatic and Socioeconomic Conditions - Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions: Southeastern Europe - page 23

Fig. 3.3 Debris-sorting dam in the “Rauschergraben” (Community of Gasen, Austria). Impaired
function and overload because of “Woody Debris”. Anyway, the measure could avoid heavy losses
in the settlement (Photo: WLV Styria, Ellmer)

Global warming is an established fact, regional and local effects of climate
change are not that clear. To run AOGCMs ( Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation
Models ), it is necessary to use low spatial and temporal solutions and to reduce phys-
ical correlations. While this is an appropriate method for global pattern, conclusions
for higher solutions have become increasingly unreliable. Problems with simulat-
ing the hydrologic circle, especially convective processes at a small scale, make
these simulations extremely difficult. Furthermore, existing datasets are improper
for analysing changes in short duration extreme precipitation events (Böhm, 2008 ).
Considering this, we have to ask how we can predict future developments, if we are
hardly able to detect ongoing trends in this matter.
Reinhard Böhm ( 2009 ), an Austrian climate scientist, compared the “Climate
Change Situation” with the turbulent runoff in a torrent channel: “

it is currently
clear, that the water altogether flows downhill as it is clear that we are living in a
time with global rising temperatures. But looking at all the details, we will detect
places with still waters or with whirls witch even cause 'uphill flow' close to tor-
rent flow

...

”. The fact of global warming and connected changes of precipitation
behaviour cannot be adopted one to one at a regional or local scale (Fig. 3.4 ).
For the region of Gasen and Haslau, the precipitation event (including the high
pre-precipitation amount) must be considered as not having been measured before,
which means a period of about 120 years. Although this was an extreme event, it is

...