Emerging new climate extremes over Europe

Osso, A., Allan, R. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0264-9447, Hawkins, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9477-3677, Shaffrey, L. and Maraun, D. (2022) Emerging new climate extremes over Europe. Climate Dynamics, 58. pp. 487-501. ISSN 0930-7575 doi: 10.1007/s00382-021-05917-3

Abstract/Summary

Human society and natural systems are intrinsically adapted to the local climate mean and variability. Therefore, changes relative to the local expected variability are highly relevant for assessing impact and planning for adaptation as the climate changes. We analyse the emerging climate signal relative to the diagnosed internal variability (signal-to-noise ratio, S/N) of a set of recently published climate indices over Europe. We calculate the signal-to-noise ratio with respect to a recent baseline (1951–1983) which relates to recent societal experience. In this framework, we find that during the 2000–2016 period, many areas of Europe already experienced significant changes in climate extremes, even when compared to this recent period which is within living memory. In particular, the S/N of extreme temperatures is larger than 1 and 2 over 34% and 4% of Europe, respectively. We also find that about 15% of Europe is experiencing more intense winter precipitation events, while in summer, 7% of Europe is experiencing stronger drought-inducing conditions.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-pure-test.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/99966
Identification Number/DOI	10.1007/s00382-021-05917-3
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Central Services Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
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