UMBRELLE · Understanding mechanisms behind reliable future extreme precipitation estimation over Europe
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2022-01-01 → 2023-12-31
- EU contribution
- €128,954
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Understanding mechanisms behind reliable future extreme precipitation estimation over Europe
The UMBRELLE project addressed a pressing societal need for reliable local climate information on the future changes in the most intense rainfall events in Europe, a region characterized by low confidence in future extreme precipitation changes. These extreme events are costly, deadly and pose significant risks to society, resulting in flooding, landslides and economic losses. UMBRELLE provided research of high relevance to stakeholders, policy-makers, and the wider public to facilitate their understanding of climate-related risks and inform adaptation efforts. The lack of knowledge in projecting changes in extreme precipitation in Europe can be partly explained by the variety of mechanisms involved, from local (e.g. convective processes) to hemispheric (e.g. atmospheric circulation) spatio-temporal scales. The research carried out in UMBRELLE directly addressed this issue, assessing the physical mechanisms involved in heavy precipitation events to better understand their response to warmer conditions. The project improved our understanding by overcoming key limitations in climate modelling related to the representation of deep convective processes and the assessment of future regional atmospheric circulation changes. The first objective of UMBRELLE focused on realistically simulating observed cases of extreme precipitation events using advanced climate modelling techniques, by explicitly simulating the processes of atmospheric deep convection at kilometer-scale spatial resolution. The second objective was to identify plausible future pathways for the atmospheric circulation over Europe using a unique 'storylines' approach that considers different scenarios from state-of-the-art climate models. Finally, the third objective was to assess how these extreme precipitation events may change in response to future warmer conditions, using innovative simulations to understand the underlying mechanisms driving these future changes.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Extreme precipitation events are among the most damaging climate extremes worldwide. Globally, precipitation extremes are expected to intensify as the climate warms, however, Europe stands out as a region with weak confidence in future extreme precipitation changes. Our lack of knowledge is explained by the variety of mechanisms at play, from local to hemispheric scales, and by two persisting limitations: the deep convection not explicitly resolved in climate models and large uncertainties in future regional atmospheric circulation changes. UMBRELLE aims to characterise the evolution of precipitation extremes over the 21st century in Europe and to provide more reliable projected changes by better understanding the physical mechanisms at play. Innovative modelling experiments are proposed to explore how observed extreme precipitation case studies could respond to climate change and what mechanisms control the future changes. To that end, novel data, tools and methods will be exploited through the use of high-spatial convection-permitting regional climate modelling for the realistic simulation of extreme precipitation that will be combined with the emergent ‘storylines’ approach to identify plausible future pathways for regional atmospheric circulation from a large ensemble of state-of-the-art Earth System Models.The original framework offered by UMBRELLE will allow a leap in our understanding of the regional impacts of climate change on extreme precipitation. It directly addresses each of the two current limitations in our knowledge and provides an innovative way to bridge the gap between the fine scale explicit simulation of precipitation and the most comprehensive simulation of the climate system in order to benefit from their respective strengths and latest advances. This project proposes ambitious research that will not only address one of the most pressing issues affecting the global research community but will be of profound societal benefit.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisCoordinatorFrance
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union