Global hotspots for the occurrence of compound events

Compound events (CEs) are weather and climate events that result from multiple hazards or drivers with the potential to cause severe socio-economic impacts. Compared with isolated hazards, the multiple hazards/drivers associated with CEs can lead to higher economic losses and death tolls. Here, we provide the first analysis of multiple multivariate CEs potentially causing high-impact floods, droughts, and fires. Using observations and reanalysis data during 1980–2014, we analyse 27 hazard pairs and provide the first spatial estimates of their occurrences on the global scale. We identify hotspots of multivariate CEs including many socio-economically important regions such as North America, Russia and western Europe. We analyse the relative importance of different multivariate CEs in six continental regions to highlight CEs posing the highest risk. Our results provide initial guidance to assess the regional risk of CE events and an observationally-based dataset to aid evaluation of climate models for simulating multivariate CEs.The research was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023) and was supported in part by the New South Wales Department of Planning, Industry and Environment. H.X.D. is currently funded by School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan (U064474). J.Z. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (Ambizione grant 179876). N.N.R. and J.Z. acknowledge the European COST Action DAMOCLES (CA17109)

Impact of higher spatial atmospheric resolution on precipitation extremes over land in global climate models

Finer grids in global climate models could lead to an improvement in the simulation of precipitation extremes. We assess the influence on model performance of increasing spatial resolution by evaluating pairs of high‐ and low‐resolution forced atmospheric simulations from six global climate models (generally the latest CMIP6 version) on a common 1° × 1° grid. The differences in tuning between the lower and higher resolution versions are as limited as possible, which allows the influence of higher resolution to be assessed exclusively. We focus on the 1985–2014 climatology of annual extremes of daily precipitation over global land, and models are compared to observations from different sources (i.e., in situ‐based and satellite‐based) to enable consideration of observational uncertainty. Finally, we address regional features of model performance based on four indices characterizing different aspects of precipitation extremes. Our analysis highlights good agreement between models that precipitation extremes are more intense at higher resolution. We find that the spread among observations is substantial and can be as large as intermodel differences, which makes the quantitative evaluation of model performance difficult. However, consistently across the four precipitation extremes indices that we investigate, models often show lower skill at higher resolution compared to their corresponding lower resolution version. Our findings suggest that increasing spatial resolution alone is not sufficient to obtain a systematic improvement in the simulation of precipitation extremes, and other improvements (e.g., physics and tuning) may be required

Observed global changes in sector-relevant climate extremes indices—an extension to HadEX3

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT : The gridded dataset are available at www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadex3 and at www.climdex.org. In addition, a version is available on the CEDA archive (https://dx.doi.org/10.5285/2bfbdba03d9b423f99cadf404ca2daab). The underlying station indices will be made available on www.climdex.org where we are allowed to do so. For some collections we are not allowed to make the underlying station data public under terms of their licence.Please read abstract in the article.PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY : To be able to assess changes in extreme temperature and rainfall events across the globe, data sets which capture characteristics of these extreme events are required. The use of indices for these characteristics further enables both data sharing and the comparison of events across the world. Extreme events have impacts across human health, our infrastructure and the natural environment. So far there has not been a global product which presents indices which are relevant for different sectors of our society, including health, agriculture and water resources. In this work we present an extension to an existing data set of extremes indices, HadEX3, by including indices defined by the World Meteorological Organization which were developed with sector specific applications in mind. We have used the same approach and methodology, and where possible the same underlying daily temperature and rainfall observations. The temperature indices show changes consistent with global scale warming, with heat wave characteristics showing increases in the number, duration and intensity of these extreme events in most places. The data files are available for use by interested researchers in their work.The Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by DSIT and by the UK-China Research & Innovation Partnership Fund through the Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP) China under the International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF); Australian Research Council Grant; the Horizon 2020 LANDMARC project; the RED-CLIMA (Red Española e Iberoamericana sobre Variabilidad Climática y Servicios Climáticos en Ecosistemas Terrestres y Marinos: RED-CLIMA) Project from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas LINCGLOBAL CSIC from Spain; National Institute of Science and Technology for Climate Change Phase 2; the National Coordination for Higher Education and Training (CAPES).https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/23335084hj2024Geography, Geoinformatics and MeteorologySDG-13:Climate actio

Changes in temperature extremes over Europe : record-breaking temperatures, severe heatwaves and anthropogenic influence

En Europe, l'augmentation des températures moyennes de surface de l'air projetée au cours du 21ème siècle s'accompagne d'une augmentation des extrêmes chauds et d'une diminution des extrêmes froids. Dans les dernières décennies, des indices témoignent déjà de ces changements, comme l'établissement récurrent de nouveaux records de chaleur ou l'augmentation des canicules. Nous étudions l'évolution des extrêmes journaliers de température au cours du 20ème et du 21ème siècle en France et en Europe, et ce en termes d'occurrence et d'intensité. Un intérêt particulier est aussi porté aux mécanismes responsables de ces futurs extrêmes climatiques, ainsi qu'aux futures températures maximales. Nous nous intéressons tout d'abord à l'évolution des records journaliers de température à partir d'observations et de modèles de climat. Entre 1950 et 1980, l'évolution théorique des records dans le cadre d'un climat stationnaire représente correctement l'évolution observée des records chauds et froids. Depuis les années 1980, un écart à ce climat stationnaire est observé, avec respectivement une augmentation et une diminution de l'occurrence des records chauds et froids. Les modèles climatiques suggèrent une accentuation de ces changements au cours du siècle. L'occurrence moyenne des records chauds à la fin du siècle présente une forte augmentation par rapport aux premières décennies de la période observée. L'augmentation la plus importante des records chauds est projetée en été, en particulier dans la région méditerranéenne. Quant aux records froids, les modèles indiquent une diminution très importante de leur occurrence, avec une occurrence quasi-nulle dans les dernières décennies. Les variations observées d'occurrence de records sont, au début du 21ème siècle, toujours dans l'éventail des fluctuations de la variabilité interne du climat. Au cours du siècle, l'émergence de l'influence anthropique de ces fluctuations est détectable dans l'évolution des records chauds et froids en été, et ce respectivement autour des décennies 2030 et 2020. À l'horizon de la fin du siècle, les changements moyens d'occurrence de records ne peuvent pas être uniquement expliqués par des fluctuations naturelles. Nous nous sommes ensuite intéressés aux futures températures estivales extrêmes, ainsi qu'aux canicules intenses qui peuvent être à l'origine de ces extrêmes. Pour cela, l'utilisation de modèles climatiques globaux est associée à la modélisation climatique régionale et à des stations d'observations en France. Tout d'abord, l'augmentation maximale des valeurs maximales des records journaliers de température en été en France est estimée à partir d'une simulation régionale à haute résolution spatiale. À l'horizon 2100, les projections indiquent une augmentation maximale de ces valeurs extrêmes en été comprise entre de 6.6°C et 9.9°C selon les régions de la France. La comparaison de ces projections avec un ensemble de modèles climatiques indique que ces augmentations maximales pourraient être plus importantes. La médiane de la distribution des modèles indique en effet une augmentation maximale de ces valeurs maximales des records journaliers de température de 11.8°C en été et en France. Puis, des expériences de modélisation de canicules intenses du climat européen de la fin du 21ème siècle ont été réalisées à partir d'événements particuliers d'un modèle de climat. Ces expériences ont mis en évidence le rôle des interactions entre le sol et l'atmosphère dans l'amplification des températures extrêmes lors de futurs évènements caniculaire intenses. L'occurrence de telles canicules est d'abord dépendante de la circulation atmosphérique, mais l'intensité des températures peut ensuite être fortement amplifiée en fonction du contenu en humidité des sols avant la canicule, et donc des conditions climatiques des semaines et des mois précédents.Over the 21st century, the mean increase in surface air temperatures is projected to be associated with an increase in warm temperature extremes and a decrease in the cold ones. Over the last decades, evidence already suggests these changes, as for example recurrent warm record-breaking temperatures or the increase in heatwave occurrence. We investigate the evolution of daily temperature extremes over the 20th and the 21st centuries in France and in Europe, their possible changes in frequency and intensity. We also focus on the mechanisms responsible for these projected climate extremes, as well as the maximum values of temperature extremes at the end of the century. First, we investigate the evolution of daily record-breaking temperatures in Europe based on the observations and an ensemble of climate models. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the theoretical evolution of the records in a stationary climate correctly reproduce the observed one, for both cold and warm records. From 1980, a shift from that theoretical evolution is observed, with an increase in the occurrence of warm records and a decrease in the occurrence of the cold ones. Climate models suggest an amplification of these changes over the century. At the end of the 21st century, the mean number of warm records shows a strong increase compared to the first decades of the observed period. The strongest increase in warm record-breaking temperatures is found in summer, and particularly over the Mediterranean edge. On the contrary, the occurrence of cold record-breaking temperatures is projected to strongly decrease, with almost no new records in the last decades of the century, for all seasons and over the entire European domain. Observed variations of daily record-breaking temperatures are still, at the beginning of the 21st century, consistent with internal climate variability only. Over the century, the anthropogenic influence emerge from these fluctuations in the summer record evolutions, around the 2030 and the 2020 for the warm and cold records respectively. By 2100, the mean changes in record occurrences cannot be explained by the internal climate variability solely, for all seasons and over the entire European domain. Then, we investigate future extreme temperatures at the end of the 21st century, as well as severe heatwaves leading to these extremes. Climate models analyses are associated with regional climate modeling and a French station-based dataset of observations. The summer 21st century evolution of the maximum values of daily warm record-breaking temperatures is first examined in the observations and the high resolution simulation of the regional model. By 2100, an increase of these values is projected, with maximum changes between +6.6°C and +9.9°C in summer among the French regions. These projections assessed from a regional model may underestimate the changes. The multi-model mean estimate of the maximum increase of these values is indeed around +11.8°C in summer over France. Finally, regional modeling experiments of severe heatwaves in the climate of the end of the 21st century in Europe are performed. These severe heatwaves are selected cases from a global climate model trajectory. The experiments results show the role of the soil-atmosphere interactions in the amplification of the extreme temperatures during such future severe warm events. The occurrence of the heatwave is first caused by the atmospheric circulation, but the temperature anomaly can then be amplified according to the soil moisture content before the event, and thus the climatic conditions of the preceding weeks and months

Les changements d'extrêmes de température en Europe : records, canicules intenses et influence anthropique

Over the 21st century, the mean increase in surface air temperatures is projected to be associated with an increase in warm temperature extremes and a decrease in the cold ones. Over the last decades, evidence already suggests these changes, as for example recurrent warm record-breaking temperatures or the increase in heatwave occurrence. We investigate the evolution of daily temperature extremes over the 20th and the 21st centuries in France and in Europe, their possible changes in frequency and intensity. We also focus on the mechanisms responsible for these projected climate extremes, as well as the maximum values of temperature extremes at the end of the century. First, we investigate the evolution of daily record-breaking temperatures in Europe based on the observations and an ensemble of climate models. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the theoretical evolution of the records in a stationary climate correctly reproduce the observed one, for both cold and warm records. From 1980, a shift from that theoretical evolution is observed, with an increase in the occurrence of warm records and a decrease in the occurrence of the cold ones. Climate models suggest an amplification of these changes over the century. At the end of the 21st century, the mean number of warm records shows a strong increase compared to the first decades of the observed period. The strongest increase in warm record-breaking temperatures is found in summer, and particularly over the Mediterranean edge. On the contrary, the occurrence of cold record-breaking temperatures is projected to strongly decrease, with almost no new records in the last decades of the century, for all seasons and over the entire European domain. Observed variations of daily record-breaking temperatures are still, at the beginning of the 21st century, consistent with internal climate variability only. Over the century, the anthropogenic influence emerge from these fluctuations in the summer record evolutions, around the 2030 and the 2020 for the warm and cold records respectively. By 2100, the mean changes in record occurrences cannot be explained by the internal climate variability solely, for all seasons and over the entire European domain. Then, we investigate future extreme temperatures at the end of the 21st century, as well as severe heatwaves leading to these extremes. Climate models analyses are associated with regional climate modeling and a French station-based dataset of observations. The summer 21st century evolution of the maximum values of daily warm record-breaking temperatures is first examined in the observations and the high resolution simulation of the regional model. By 2100, an increase of these values is projected, with maximum changes between +6.6°C and +9.9°C in summer among the French regions. These projections assessed from a regional model may underestimate the changes. The multi-model mean estimate of the maximum increase of these values is indeed around +11.8°C in summer over France. Finally, regional modeling experiments of severe heatwaves in the climate of the end of the 21st century in Europe are performed. These severe heatwaves are selected cases from a global climate model trajectory. The experiments results show the role of the soil-atmosphere interactions in the amplification of the extreme temperatures during such future severe warm events. The occurrence of the heatwave is first caused by the atmospheric circulation, but the temperature anomaly can then be amplified according to the soil moisture content before the event, and thus the climatic conditions of the preceding weeks and months.En Europe, l'augmentation des températures moyennes de surface de l'air projetée au cours du 21ème siècle s'accompagne d'une augmentation des extrêmes chauds et d'une diminution des extrêmes froids. Dans les dernières décennies, des indices témoignent déjà de ces changements, comme l'établissement récurrent de nouveaux records de chaleur ou l'augmentation des canicules. Nous étudions l'évolution des extrêmes journaliers de température au cours du 20ème et du 21ème siècle en France et en Europe, et ce en termes d'occurrence et d'intensité. Un intérêt particulier est aussi porté aux mécanismes responsables de ces futurs extrêmes climatiques, ainsi qu'aux futures températures maximales. Nous nous intéressons tout d'abord à l'évolution des records journaliers de température à partir d'observations et de modèles de climat. Entre 1950 et 1980, l'évolution théorique des records dans le cadre d'un climat stationnaire représente correctement l'évolution observée des records chauds et froids. Depuis les années 1980, un écart à ce climat stationnaire est observé, avec respectivement une augmentation et une diminution de l'occurrence des records chauds et froids. Les modèles climatiques suggèrent une accentuation de ces changements au cours du siècle. L'occurrence moyenne des records chauds à la fin du siècle présente une forte augmentation par rapport aux premières décennies de la période observée. L'augmentation la plus importante des records chauds est projetée en été, en particulier dans la région méditerranéenne. Quant aux records froids, les modèles indiquent une diminution très importante de leur occurrence, avec une occurrence quasi-nulle dans les dernières décennies. Les variations observées d'occurrence de records sont, au début du 21ème siècle, toujours dans l'éventail des fluctuations de la variabilité interne du climat. Au cours du siècle, l'émergence de l'influence anthropique de ces fluctuations est détectable dans l'évolution des records chauds et froids en été, et ce respectivement autour des décennies 2030 et 2020. À l'horizon de la fin du siècle, les changements moyens d'occurrence de records ne peuvent pas être uniquement expliqués par des fluctuations naturelles. Nous nous sommes ensuite intéressés aux futures températures estivales extrêmes, ainsi qu'aux canicules intenses qui peuvent être à l'origine de ces extrêmes. Pour cela, l'utilisation de modèles climatiques globaux est associée à la modélisation climatique régionale et à des stations d'observations en France. Tout d'abord, l'augmentation maximale des valeurs maximales des records journaliers de température en été en France est estimée à partir d'une simulation régionale à haute résolution spatiale. À l'horizon 2100, les projections indiquent une augmentation maximale de ces valeurs extrêmes en été comprise entre de 6.6°C et 9.9°C selon les régions de la France. La comparaison de ces projections avec un ensemble de modèles climatiques indique que ces augmentations maximales pourraient être plus importantes. La médiane de la distribution des modèles indique en effet une augmentation maximale de ces valeurs maximales des records journaliers de température de 11.8°C en été et en France. Puis, des expériences de modélisation de canicules intenses du climat européen de la fin du 21ème siècle ont été réalisées à partir d'événements particuliers d'un modèle de climat. Ces expériences ont mis en évidence le rôle des interactions entre le sol et l'atmosphère dans l'amplification des températures extrêmes lors de futurs évènements caniculaire intenses. L'occurrence de telles canicules est d'abord dépendante de la circulation atmosphérique, mais l'intensité des températures peut ensuite être fortement amplifiée en fonction du contenu en humidité des sols avant la canicule, et donc des conditions climatiques des semaines et des mois précédents

Future Seasonal Changes in Extreme Precipitation Scale With Changes in the Mean

Abstract Atmospheric warming results in an intensification of annual precipitation over the globe but large uncertainties remain regionally and at seasonal scales, especially for extremes. Using 29 models from the Sixth Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), we investigate future seasonal changes in extreme precipitation (under the scenario SSP5‐8.5) and how it compares to changes in mean precipitation. Over land, we find a strong intensification of the wettest day in all seasons over the mid and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and over India during the monsoon. Extreme intensity decreases in the subtropics for some seasons, including over large regions around the Mediterranean basin and Southern Africa, and these drying patterns are not apparent in annual results. The key finding is that the CMIP6 multi‐model mean always shows that seasonal changes in mean and extreme precipitation align where there is high model agreement. That is, in all seasons by the end of the 21st century, extremes intensify in regions where mean precipitation increases and decline where mean precipitation decreases. This should not hide inherent uncertainties associated, namely the large range of changes intensity that can be found across the models, and an important modulation of the changes by internal variability. Yet, this study shows that the multi‐model mean shows broad consistency such that future seasonal changes in mean precipitation could be used to infer future changes in extremes (and vice versa), thus providing valuable information for risk planning and mitigation strategies

Diverse estimates of annual maxima daily precipitation in 22 state-of-the-art quasi-global land observation datasets

International audienceDiverse estimates of annual maxima daily precipitation in 22 state-of-theart quasi-global land observation datasets To cite this article: Margot Bador et al 2020 Environ. Res. Lett. 15 035005 View the article online for updates and enhancements

Spatial clustering of summer temperature maxima from the CNRM-CM5 climate model ensembles & E-OBS over Europe

International audienceReducing the dimensionality of the complex spatio-temporal variables associated with climate modeling,especially ensembles of climate models, is a challenging and important objective. For studies of detectionand attribution, it is especially important to maintain information related to the extreme values of theatmospheric processes. Typical methods for data reduction involve summarizing climate model outputinformation through means and variances, which does not preserve any information about the extremes.In order to help solve this challenge, a dependence summary measure appropriate for extreme valuesmust be inferred. Here, we adapt one such measure from a recent study to a larger domain with adifferent variable and gridded data from observations and climate model ensembles, i.e. E-OBS observations and the CNRM-CM5 model. The handling of such ensembles of data is proposed, as well as a comparison of the spatial clusterings between two different ensembles, here a present-day and a future ensemble of climate simulations. This method yields valid information concerning extremes, while greatly reducing the data set

Assessing the Robustness of Future Extreme Precipitation Intensification in the CMIP5 Ensemble

A warming climate is expected to intensify extreme precipitation, and climate models project a general intensification of annual extreme precipitation in most regions of the globe throughout the twenty-first century. We investigate the robustness of this future intensification over land across different models, regions, and seasons and evaluate the role of model interdependencies in the CMIP5 ensemble. Strong similarities in extreme precipitation changes are found between models that share atmospheric physics, turning an ensemble of 27 models into around 14 projections. We find that future annual extreme precipitation intensity increases in the majority of models and in the majority of land grid cells, from the driest to the wettest regions, as defined by each model’s precipitation climatology. The intermodel spread is generally larger over wet than over dry regions, smaller in the dry season compared to the wet season and at the annual scale, and largely reduced in extratropical compared to tropical regions and at the global scale. For each model, the future increase in annual and seasonal maximum daily precipitation amounts exceeds the range of simulated internal variability in the majority of land grid cells. At both annual and seasonal scales, however, there are a few regions where the change is still within the background climate noise, but their size and location differ between models. In extratropical regions, the signal-to-noise ratio of projected changes in extreme precipitation is particularly robust across models because of a similar change and background climate noise, whereas projected changes are less robust in the tropics

Selecting regional climate models based on their skill could give more credible precipitation projections over the complex Southeast Asia region

International audienceThis study focuses on future seasonal changes in daily precipitation using Regional Climate Models (RCMs) from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiments-Southeast Asia ensemble (CORDEX-SEA). Projections using this RCM ensemble generally show a larger inter-model spread in winter than in summer, with higher significance and model agreement in summer over most land areas. We evaluate how well the RCMs simulate climatological precipitation using two skill metrics. To extract reliable projections, two sub-ensembles of ‘better’ and ‘worse’ performing models are selected and their respective projections compared. We find projected intensification of summer precipitation over northern SEA, which is robust across RCMs. On the contrary, in the southern part of SEA, the ‘worse’ ensemble projects a significant and widespread decrease in summer rainfall intensity whereas a slight intensification is projected by the ‘better’ ensemble. Further exploration of inter-model differences in future changes reveals that these are mainly explained by changes in moisture supply from large-scale sources (i.e., moisture convergence) with enhanced effects from local sources (i.e., evapotranspiration). The ‘worse’ models project greater changes in atmospheric circulation compared with the ‘better’ models, which can explain part of the uncertainty in projections for daily precipitation over the CORDEX-SEA domain. Hence, our findings might help assess more reliable projections over the SEA region by selecting models based on a two-step model evaluation: the ability of models to simulate historical daily precipitation and their performance in reproducing key physical processes of the regional climate