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Opacity

Extreme Precipitation

Key messages:

  • Overall slight increase of extreme precipitation in Europe
  • Some regions experience stronger increase in extreme precipitation than others

Why is the content of this map important?

Extreme precipitation affects many aspects of our life. It can lead to flooding of inhabited area and infrastructure, it can cause landslides and can lead to reduced crop yields.

Which sectors are affected by this result?

The health sector is affected, as flood events and landslides caused by extreme precipitation may lead to human loss. The agricultural sector is also influenced, as flooding or extreme precipitation gives rise to loss of crop yields. Flood events caused by extreme precipitation can also affect infrastructure and energy production.

What is shown on the maps?

On the basis of all rainy days (more than 1mm/day) within the 30 year period, the maps show the 95th percentile of precipitation (only 5% of the rainy days exceed this value). This value is an indicator for the strength of extreme precipitation events. It is shown for the reference present day climate and the +2°C global warming in mm/day. In addition, the difference is plotted for the +2°C global warming period.

At large, a slight increase in extreme precipitation is projected in Europe. Single regions show a more pronounced increase in extreme precipitation. In present day climate, the region of North-East Italy/Western Slovenia/Southern Austria shows comparatively high simulated extreme precipitation. In parts of this region, an elevated increase in extreme precipitation is simulated.

Details and further information:

Over large areas of Western and Southern Europe, the autumn season has the highest extreme precipitation values. During autumn, some areas show extreme precipitation values of more than 35 mm/day. One of these regions is the above-mentioned North-East Italy/Western Slovenia/Southern Austria, which has a projected increase of up to 6 mm/day.
At present day and over most areas in Europe, the values of extreme precipitation lie between 10 and 20 mm/day. Here, an increase of up to 2 mm/day for extreme precipitation can be important. Note that the analysis is done on daily values. Short precipitation events are accounted for on a daily mean basis.

Additional information:

To investigate this, the ensemble mean of the five mandatory climate simulations is used. Hence, the ensemble consists of 5 simulations in total.

Author:

Claas Teichmann

Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), Germany