Variation of extreme climate events along a Mediterranean (35N) and an Eastern European transect (23E) transect: Results from the MICE project
Giannakopoulos, C., Akylas, E., Good, P.
EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract 4152
It is widely recognized that changes in the severity and frequency of extreme climate events, such as windstorm and heat-waves, are likely to be more important than changes in the average climate. The EU-funded project MICE (Modeling the Impacts of Climate Extremes) seeks to identify the likely changes in the occurrence of extremes of rainfall, temperature and windstorm due to global warming, using information from climate models as a basis, and to study the impacts of these changes in selected European environments. As participants in MICE, we have carried out analyses of extremes with the following objectives : (i) to compare modeled and observed data in the Eastern Mediterranean so as to evaluate the ability of the global climate model HadCM3 to reproduce the occurrence of extreme events and (ii) to analyze model output with respect to future changes in the occurrence of extremes along two selected transects in the Mediterranean (35oN) and the Eastern Europe (23oE).Our analysis seeks to determine the spatial and temporal patterns of extreme event occurrence along the above mentioned transects. For the comparison of gridded and station data, we selected the HadCM3 cells that cover Greece and compared with meteorological observations from two representative stations for the period 1961-1990.This comparison is more qualitative since the spatial resolution of HadCM3 does not allow a direct comparison with station data. It aids however to determine whether the model exhibits a cold or warm temperature bias in its continental or marine grid boxes respectively. Future changes in extreme event occurrence have been analyzed using two different forcing scenarios from HadCM3 global climate model. We separated land and sea grid boxes and examined the variations of future extremes events related to temperature, wind and precipitation up to 2100 along the Mediterranean and Eastern European land and sea transects.
Giannakopoulos, C., Akylas, E., Good, P.
EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract 4152
It is widely recognized that changes in the severity and frequency of extreme climate events, such as windstorm and heat-waves, are likely to be more important than changes in the average climate. The EU-funded project MICE (Modeling the Impacts of Climate Extremes) seeks to identify the likely changes in the occurrence of extremes of rainfall, temperature and windstorm due to global warming, using information from climate models as a basis, and to study the impacts of these changes in selected European environments. As participants in MICE, we have carried out analyses of extremes with the following objectives : (i) to compare modeled and observed data in the Eastern Mediterranean so as to evaluate the ability of the global climate model HadCM3 to reproduce the occurrence of extreme events and (ii) to analyze model output with respect to future changes in the occurrence of extremes along two selected transects in the Mediterranean (35oN) and the Eastern Europe (23oE).Our analysis seeks to determine the spatial and temporal patterns of extreme event occurrence along the above mentioned transects. For the comparison of gridded and station data, we selected the HadCM3 cells that cover Greece and compared with meteorological observations from two representative stations for the period 1961-1990.This comparison is more qualitative since the spatial resolution of HadCM3 does not allow a direct comparison with station data. It aids however to determine whether the model exhibits a cold or warm temperature bias in its continental or marine grid boxes respectively. Future changes in extreme event occurrence have been analyzed using two different forcing scenarios from HadCM3 global climate model. We separated land and sea grid boxes and examined the variations of future extremes events related to temperature, wind and precipitation up to 2100 along the Mediterranean and Eastern European land and sea transects.