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Data assimilation techniques can improve the simulation of regional precipitation and temperature over complex regions. Nowadays, regional climate simulations using convection-permitting scales are becoming available, but the number of those simulations including an additional data assimilation scheme is rather small because of their high computational costs. Hence, it is important to evaluate the effect of data assimilation schemes for such convection-permitting simulations, and to determine if data assimilation produces any improvement in the simulation of temperature or precipitation fields.To investigate this, we employ the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF; version 3.8.1) to dynamically downscale the state-of-the-art ERA5 reanalysis over Western Europe. A 3 km spatial resolution grid is employed, together with 51 vertical levels. The temporal resolution of the WRF outputs is one hour. Two model configurations are tested in two experiments spanning the period 2010-2020 after a one-year spin-up. In the first experiment (NoDA), after the initialization of the model, the boundary conditions drive the model. The second experiment (DA) is configured the same way as NoDA, but the additional 3DVAR data assimilation step (WRFDA) is run every six hours (00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC – analysis times). Observations obtained from the PREPBUFR dataset (NCEP ADP Global Upper Air and Surface Weather Observations) are employed, and only those included inside a 120 min window around analysis times were assimilated. For DA, monthly varying background error covariance matrices were created. In both cases, the model uses the Noah-MP land surface model, and high-resolution daily-varying SST fields from the NOAA OI SST v2 data set instead of the SST field from ERA5.The results of this study show that both experiments produce similar monthly precipitation patterns to those from observational data sets such as IMERG and CHIRPS, or the reanalysis ERA5. However, in general, and particularly during summer months, DA produces larger amounts of precipitation than NoDA. These amounts are in line with those from CHIRPS. In terms of temperature, DA show colder temperatures than NoDA in most of the months, which again are similar to those from observational data sets such as CRU or EOBS. The monthly temperature patterns of both experiments are similar to those from both observational data sets. These results highlight the fact that NoDA already is able to generate reliable precipitation and temperature fields compared to diverse gridded observational data sets, but the 3DVAR data assimilation can additionally improve the performance of the regional model when convection-permitting scales are employed.

Extratropical cyclones are a major source of natural hazards in the mid latitudes as wind and precipitation extremes are associated to this weather phenomenon. Still the response of extratropical cyclones and their characteristics to strong external forcing changes is not yet fully understood. In particular, the impact of the orbital forcing as well as variations of the major ice sheets during glacial times on extratropical cyclones have not been investigated so far. Thus, the aim of this study is to fill this gap and to assess the impact of orbital forcing and northern hemispheric ice sheet height variations on extratropical cyclones and their characteristics during winter and summer. The main research tool is the Community Earth System Model CESM1.2. We performed a set of time slice sensitivity simulations under preindustrial (PI) conditions and for the following different glacial periods: Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), Marine Isotopic stage 4 (MIS4), MIS6, and MIS8. Additionally, we vary the northern hemispheric ice sheet height for all the different glacial periods by 33%, 66%, 100% and 125% of the ice sheet reconstructed for the LGM. For each of the simulations the extratropical cyclones are identified with a Lagrangian cyclone detection and tracking algorithm, which delivers a set of different cyclone characteristics, such as, cyclone frequency maps, cyclone area, central pressure, cyclone depth, precipitation associated to the extratropical cyclones as well as extremes in cyclone depth and extratropical cyclone-related precipitation. These cyclone characteristics are investigated for the winter and the summer season separately.Preliminary results show that the extratropical cyclone tracks are shifted southwards on the Northern Hemisphere during the winter season. This has rather strong implication for the Mediterranean, with an increase of precipitation during glacial times over the western Mediterranean. This increase is modulated when changing the ice sheet height as extratropical cyclone tracks shift further south with increasing northern hemispheric ice sheet height. The orbital forcing shows a higher impact during the summer season, where mean precipitation is further reduced over Europe when comparing MIS4 and MIS8 with LGM. The role of the cyclones for these changes in summer needs to be assessed as well as the implication in the North Pacific.

Climate over Kenya is rather heterogeneous and exceptionally dry for a region located in the tropics. This is related to various large-scale drivers, such as Lake Victoria, the complex topography, and the vicinity to the ocean. In consequence water resources are scarce and several stakeholders depend on these. Hence, it is important to understand how precipitation amounts and patterns change under global warming. A special focus is on Mount Kenya, one of the most important freshwater towers in Kenya. To investigate these changes, we employ the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model V3.8.1 to downscale a 30-year period for the present and the future climate, based on global climate simulations. The present period covers the years 1981–2010, and the future is run once for the mitigation scenario RCP2.6 and for the high-emission scenario RCP8.5 for the years 2071–2100.Changes in precipitation and temperature are well noticeable in the region of Mount Kenya. The projection indicates an increase in precipitation for the two rainy seasons (March to May, and October to November), while precipitation is reduced in the dry season. Extreme precipitation around Mount Kenya shows increases in the future during the rainy season, whereby the two different scenarios show a similar increase in extreme precipitation. This result is a bit surprising and needs further investigation. As expected, temperatures are projected to increase over all of Kenya, and particularly along the slopes of Mount Kenya in all months. For temperature there is a clear difference in the warming between the two scenarios, as RCP8.5 shows a much stronger change in temperature than RCP2.6. The summit of Mount Kenya reaches temperatures in the future that today are found at an elevation of around 3,200 m above sea level (a.s.l.). This warming can substantially affect the endemic vegetation along the slopes of Mount Kenya. Assuming that the tree line is limited by temperature and not precipitation, as the latter is abundant, it could move from around 3,000 m a.s.l. up to 3,700 m a.s.l. The strong increase in temperature further affects the remaining glacier, which is currently an important water storage during dry months. The projected increase in precipitation over entire Kenya will therefore increase water availability and reduce fire danger. Nevertheless, the combined increase in temperature and precipitation could affect human and animal wellbeing, as heat stress may be increased.All these results are based on a single regional and global climate model. Preliminary results indicate that the rainy season is clearly underestimated in the present simulation, compared to simulations obtained by a downscaling of the reanalysis ERA5. This indicates that important components of the atmosphere are not correctly captured by the model. These could include land-atmosphere interactions, misrepresentation of land cover, biases in sea surface temperatures and related changes in the atmospheric circulations. Thus, the atmospheric circulation and interactions with the land surface have to be assessed in further studies.

Climate change and progressive population development (i.e., ageing) are altering the temporal patterns in temperature-related mortality in Switzerland. However, limited evidence exists on how current trends in heat- and cold-related mortality would evolve in future decades under composite scenarios of global warming and population development. Moreover, the contribution of these drivers to future mortality impacts is not well-understood. Therefore, we aimed to project heat- and cold-related mortality in Switzerland under various warming scenarios based on a set of emission and population development pathways and to disentangle the contribution of each of these two drivers using high-resolution mortality and temperature data. We combined age-specific (

The changing climate system between icehouse and greenhouse states during the Quaternary Period were dramatic, yet the magnitude of these changes are still uncertain due to unconstrained ice sheets and a lack of transition mechanisms. In this study, we investigate the individual and combined impact of ice sheet heights, orbital configurations, and greenhouse gas changes for a range of Quaternary climate states to assess the linearity or non-linearity of the climate system’s response. To this end, we conduct two sets of sensitivity experiments: a series on the Preindustrial (PI) climate and experiments on Quaternary glacial states. First, modifying the PI conditions with respect to orbit, Greenland ice sheet height, and greenhouse gasses, we find that the climate system’s response to the individual factors do not superimpose on the combined response of the climate system. Thus, already under PI conditions the climate system responds in a non-linear fashion. Second, our results on Quaternary glacial states show that changing ice sheet height is the primary cause of changes in climate systems, regardless of orbit. But the subtle regional effects that orbit has are not always explained by ice sheet height changes. As for the PI simulations we find a strong, non-linear behavior in combined orbital-ice sheet height effect, where the response of the atmospheric circulation plays an important role. Therefore, orbit, ice sheets, and greenhouse gasses evolve through time by specific pathways and imply a theoretical constraint on the real climate state. As the spatial and temporal resolution of the Quaternary proxy data improves, combined with these modeled climates, we expect to generate substantial constraints on the number of realistic Quaternary climate states.

Knowing that internal climate variability is the principal driver of Mediterranean droughts during the last millennium, in this study, we investigate circulation patterns in the Euro-Atlantic domain associated with multi-year droughts over the Mediterranean region in CMIP5-PMIP3 and CESM-LME simulations. The focus is on the natural variability of droughts during 850–2005, thus excluding the anthropogenic trends from 1850 CE onward. The results re-confirm that Mediterranean drought occurrence during the last millennium is associated with internal variability. In terms of the temporal variability, all climate models exhibit a multi-decadal anti-phase occurrence of droughts between the western and eastern Mediterranean agreeing with some proxy records. This anti-phase occurrence of droughts can be explained by the dominant circulation patterns in each region: western Mediterranean droughts are dominated by a high-pressure system and ridge over central Europe and an NAO-like pattern, while eastern Mediterranean droughts are linked to positive pressure anomalies in the southern and eastern Mediterranean, negative NAO, negative EA and EA-WR-like patterns. However, these modes of climate variability are strongly model-dependent, i.e. each model has its preferred circulation patterns that occur more frequently during droughts, suggesting that the main drivers of droughts differ between the models. The models' preference is therefore a potential source of uncertainties in Mediterranean droughts in model-proxy comparison and may have implications for future climate projections.

In Arabia, the first half of the sixth century CE was marked by the demise of Himyar, the dominant power in Arabia until 525 CE. Important social and political changes followed, which promoted the disintegration of the major Arabian polities. Here, we present hydroclimate records from around Southern Arabia, including a new high-resolution stalagmite record from northern Oman. These records clearly indicate unprecedented droughts during the sixth century CE, with the most severe aridity persisting between ~500 and 530 CE. We suggest that such droughts undermined the resilience of Himyar and thereby contributed to the societal changes from which Islam emerged.

Temperature (TS) and precipitation (PRECT) of 20 ensemble runs during 849 - 859 CE from the Community Earth System Model 1.2.2. The dataset is used for the publication "The 852/3 CE Mount Churchill eruption: examining the potential climatic and societal impacts and the timing of the Medieval Climate Anomaly in the North Atlantic Region" (Mackay et al., 2022).

The past as an analogue for the future is one of the main motivations to use climate models for paleoclimate applications. Assessing possible model limitations in simulating past climate changes can lead to an improved understanding and representation of the response of the climate system to changes in the forcing, setting the basis for more reliable information for the future. In this study, the regional climate model (RCM) COSMO-CLM is used for the investigation of the mid-Holocene (MH, 6000 years ago) European climate, aiming to contribute to the solution of the long-standing debate on the reconstruction of MH summer temperatures for the region, and gaining more insights into the development of appropriate methods for the production of future climate projections. Two physically perturbed ensembles (PPEs) are first built by perturbing model physics and parameter values, consistently over two periods characterized by different forcing (i.e., the MH and pre-industrial, PI). The goal is to uncover possible processes associated with the considered changes that could deliver a response in MH summer temperatures closer to evidence from continental-scale pollen-based reconstructions. None of the investigated changes in model configuration produces remarkable differences with respect to the mean model behavior. This indicates a limited sensitivity of the model to changes in the climate forcing, in terms of its structural uncertainty. Additional sensitivity tests are further conducted for the MH, by perturbing the model initial soil moisture conditions at the beginning of spring. A strong spatial dependency of summer near-surface temperatures on the soil moisture available in spring is evinced from these experiments, with particularly remarkable differences evident over the Balkans and the areas north of the Black Sea. This emphasizes the role of soil–atmosphere interactions as one of the possible drivers of the differences in proxy-based summer temperatures evident between northern and southern Europe. A well-known deficiency of the considered land scheme of COSMO-CLM in properly retaining spring soil moisture, confirmed by the performed tests, suggests that more attention should be paid to the performance of the soil component of climate models applied to this case study. The consideration of more complex soil schemes may be required to help bridging the gap between models and proxy reconstructions. Finally, the distribution of the PPEs with changes in model configuration is analyzed for different variables. In almost all of the considered cases the results show that what is optimal for one period, in terms of a model configuration, is not the best for another characterized by different radiative forcing. These results raise concerns about the usefulness of automatic and objective calibration methods for RCMs, suggesting that a preferable approach is the production of small PPEs that target a set of model configurations, properly representing climate phenomena characteristic of the target region and that will be likely to contain the best model answer under different forcing., Climate of the Past, 18 (4), ISSN:1814-9324, ISSN:1814-9332

The performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model version 3.8.1 at convection-permitting scale is evaluated by means of several sensitivity simulations over southern Peru down to a grid resolution of 1 km, whereby the main focus is on the domain with 5 km horizontal resolution. Different configurations of microphysics, cumulus, longwave radiation and planetary boundary layer schemes are tested. For the year 2008, the simulated precipitation amounts and patterns are compared to gridded observational data sets and weather station data gathered from Peru, Bolivia and Brazil. The temporal correlation of simulated monthly precipitation sums against in-situ and gridded observational data show that the most challenging regions for WRF are the slopes along both sides of the Andes, i.e., elevations between 1000 and 3000 m above sea level. The pattern correlation analysis between simulated precipitation and station data suggests that all tested WRF setups perform rather poorly along the northeastern slopes of the Andes during the entire year. In the southwestern region of the domain the performance of all setups is better except for the driest period (May–September). The results of the pattern correlation to the gridded observational data sets show that all setups perform reasonably well except along both slopes during the dry season. The precipitation patterns reveal that the typical setup used over Europe is too dry throughout the entire year, and that the experiment with the combination of the single-moment 6-class microphysics scheme and the Grell–Freitas cumulus parameterization in the domains with resolutions larger than 5 km, suitable for East Africa, does not perfectly apply to other equatorial regions such as the Amazon basin in southeastern Peru. The experiment with the Stony–Brook University microphysics scheme and the Grell-Freitas cumulus parameterization tends to overestimate precipitation over the northeastern slopes of the Andes, but allows to enforce a positive feedback between the soil moisture, air temperature, relative humidity, mid-level cloud cover and finally, also precipitation. Hence, this setup is the one providing the most accurate results over the Peruvian Amazon, and particularly over the department of Madre de Dios, which is a region of interest because it is considered the biodiversity hotspot of Peru. The robustness of this particular parameterization option is backed up by similar results obtained during wet climate conditions observed in 2012.

Glacier modelling of the Alpine region during past ice ages has received increasing attention in the recent years. Considering the complexity of the Alpine topography, high spatial resolution climate information is required for running glacier models over the area. However, continuous climatic signal at resolution higher than 10 km and covering several hundred thousand of years cannot be directly derived using dynamical climate models. Alternative strategies must be considered.Here, a climate emulator providing monthly temperature and precipitation over the Alpine region, with a horizontal resolution of 2x2 km and covering the last 400’000 years at intervals of 100 years, is presented. The emulatorcombines a dynamical modelling chain of Earth System Models (ESMs) and a Regional Climate Model (RCM) with different statistical modelling methods. The dynamical modelling chain delivers climate information at highest accuracy based upon physical prognostic equations for specific time slices. The subsequent statistical modelling uses these time slices as physically consistent boundaries and estimates the climate conditions in between them, thus generatinga long-term climate evolution.A total of 19 climate model experiments are conducted for different time-slices of the considered study period, including also sensitivity tests with changes in the ice sheet height of the Northern Hemisphere and land cover type. Starting from a simple linear regression, a series of different statistical approaches is tested for building the emulator. An evaluation of the different versions is then conducted against one of the RCM time-slice experiments, left out in turns from the training set of the statistical model. Results show robust skills of the emulator in the representation of temperature, whose changes are mainly driven by smooth variations in the seasonal pattern of insolation at different time-steps, already using a simple linear regression. For precipitation, non-linearities associated to changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulation seem to dominate, making the use of more complex statistical approaches more appropriate. Additional evaluation tests conducted using glacier modelling driven by the outputs of the developed emulator confirm its potential for reconstructing the ice extent over the Alpine region during the last ice ages.

In this study, we investigate the sensitivity of the glacial Alpine hydro-climate to changes of the Laurentide ice sheet (LIS). Bridging the scale gap by using a chain of global and regional climate models, we perform sensitivity simulations of up to 2 km horizontal resolution over the Alps for the Last Glacial Maximum and the Marine Isotope Stage 4. In winter, we find wetter conditions in the southern part of the Alps during glacial conditions compared to present day, to which dynamical processes, i.e. changes in the wind speed and direction, substantially contribute. During summer, we find the expected drier conditions in most of the Alpine region during glacial conditions, as thermodynamics suggests drier conditions under lower temperatures. The sensitivity simulations of the LIS changes show that an increase of the ice-sheet thickness leads to a significant intensification of glacial Alpine hydro-climate conditions, which is mainly explained by dynamical processes. The findings demonstrate that the Laurentide ice-sheet topography plays an important role in regulating the Alpine hydro-climate and thus permits a better understanding of the precipitation patterns in the complex Alpine terrain at glacial times.

Extratropical cyclones are a major source of natural hazards in the mid latitudes as wind and precipitation extremes are associated to this weather phenomenon. Still the response of extratropical cyclones and their characteristics to strong external forcing changes is not yet fully understood. In particular, the impact of the orbital forcing as well as variations of the major ice sheets during glacial times on extratropical cyclones have not been investigated so far. Thus, the aim of this study is to fill this gap and to assess the impact of orbital forcing and northern hemispheric ice sheet height variations on extratropical cyclones and their characteristics during winter and summer. The main research tool is the Community Earth System Model CESM1.2. We performed a set of time slice sensitivity simulations under preindustrial (PI) conditions and for the following different glacial periods: Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), Marine Isotopic stage 4 (MIS4), MIS6, and MIS8. Additionally, we vary the northern hemispheric ice sheet height for all the different glacial periods by 33%, 66%, 100% and 125% of the ice sheet reconstructed for the LGM. For each of the simulations the extratropical cyclones are identified with a Lagrangian cyclone detection and tracking algorithm, which delivers a set of different cyclone characteristics, such as, cyclone frequency maps, cyclone area, central pressure, cyclone depth, precipitation associated to the extratropical cyclones as well as extremes in cyclone depth and extratropical cyclone-related precipitation. These cyclone characteristics are investigated for the winter and the summer season separately.Preliminary results show that the extratropical cyclone tracks are shifted southwards on the Northern Hemisphere during the winter season. This shift has rather strong implication for the Mediterranean, with an increase of winter precipitation during glacial times over the western Mediterranean. The increase is modulated when changing the ice sheet height as extratropical cyclone tracks shift further south with increasing northern hemispheric ice sheet height. The orbital forcing shows a higher impact during summer, where mean precipitation is further reduced over Europe when comparing MIS4 and MIS8 with LGM. The changes in the cyclone tracks and related precipitation changes in the Mediterranean for the summer season need to be assessed. Additionally, the effect of the orbital forcing on changes in cyclone tracks and associated precipitation changes in the North Pacific must be evaluated for both seasons.

Moisture transport over the northeastern Atlantic Ocean is an important process governing precipitation distribution and variability over western Europe. To assess its long-term variability, the vertically integrated horizontal water vapor transport (IVT) from a long-term climate simulation spanning the period 850–2100 CE was used. Results show a steady increase in moisture transport toward western Europe since the late-nineteenth century that is projected to expand during the twenty-first century under the RCP8.5 scenario. The projected IVT for 2070–99 significantly exceeds the range given by interannual–interdecadal variability of the last millennium. Changes in IVT are in line with significant increases in tropospheric moisture content, driven by the concurrent rise in surface temperatures associated with the anthropogenic climate trend. On regional scales, recent and projected precipitation changes over the British Isles follow the global positive IVT trend, whereas a robust precipitation decrease over Iberia is identified in the twenty-first century, particularly during autumn. This indicates a possible extension of stable and dry summer conditions and a decoupling between moisture availability and dynamical forcing. The investigation of circulation features reveals a mean poleward shift of moisture corridors and associated atmospheric rivers. In particular, in Iberia, a significant increase in the frequency of dry weather types is observed, accompanied by a decrease in the frequency of wet types. An opposite response is observed over the British Isles. These changes imply a stronger meridional north–south dipole in terms of pressure and precipitation distributions, enhancing the transport toward central Europe rather than to Iberia.

The Mediterranean has been identified as particularly vulnerable to climate change, yet a high-resolution temperature reconstruction extending back into the Medieval Warm Period is still lacking. Here we present such a record from a high-elevation site on Mt. Smolikas in northern Greece, where some of Europe’s oldest trees provide evidence of warm season temperature variability back to 730 CE. The reconstruction is derived from 192 annually resolved, latewood density series from ancient living and relict Pinus heldreichii trees calibrating at r1911–2015 = 0.73 against regional July–September (JAS) temperatures. Although the recent 1985–2014 period was the warmest 30-year interval (JAS Twrt.1961–1990 = + 0.71 °C) since the eleventh century, temperatures during the ninth to tenth centuries were even warmer, including the warmest reconstructed 30-year period from 876–905 (+ 0.78 °C). These differences between warm periods are statistically insignificant though. Several distinct cold episodes punctuate the Little Ice Age, albeit the coldest 30-year period is centered during high medieval times from 997–1026 (− 1.63 °C). Comparison with reconstructions from the Alps and Scandinavia shows that a similar cold episode occurred in central Europe but was absent at northern latitudes. The reconstructions also reveal different millennial-scale temperature trends (NEur = − 0.73 °C/1000 years, CEur = − 0.13 °C, SEur = + 0.23 °C) potentially triggered by latitudinal changes in summer insolation due to orbital forcing. These features, the opposing millennial-scale temperature trends and the medieval multi-decadal cooling recorded in Central Europe and the Mediterranean, are not well captured in state-of-the-art climate model simulations.

We analyze the drivers of hydroclimate variability in northeast Brazil and southeast Australia using a causal discovery algorithm (CDA). The CDA-based regression models are also generated to assess...

This study presents a new dynamical downscaling strategy for extreme events. It is based on a combination of statistical downscaling of coarsely resolved global model simulations and dynamical downscaling of specific extreme events constrained by the statistical downscaling part. The method is applied to precipitation extremes over the upper Aare catchment, an area in Switzerland which is characterized by complex terrain. The statistical downscaling part consists of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) framework trained in a reference period. Thereby, dynamically downscaled precipitation over the target area serve as predictands and large-scale variables, received from the global model simulation, as predictors. Applying the ANN to long term global simulations produces a precipitation series that acts as a surrogate of the dynamically downscaled precipitation for a longer climate period, and therefore are used in the selection of events. These events are then dynamically downscaled with a regional climate model to 2 km. The results show that this strategy is suitable to constraint extreme precipitation events, although some limitations remain, e.g., the method has lower efficiency in identifying extreme events in summer and the sensitivity of extreme events to climate change is underestimated.

Near-surface seasonal and annual mean wind speed in Switzerland is investigated using homogenized observations, Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CRv2c) data and raw model output of a 75 member EURO-COoRdinated Downscaling EXperiment regional climate model (RCM) ensemble for present day and future scenarios. The wind speed observations show a significant decrease in the Alps and on the southern Alpine slopes in the period 1981–2010. However, the 20CRv2c data reveal that the recent trends lie well within the decadal variability over longer time periods and no clear signs of a systematic wind stilling can be found for Switzerland. The ensemble of RCMs shows large biases in the annual mean wind speed over the Jura mountains, and some members also show large biases in the Alps compared to station observations. The spatial distribution of the model biases varies strongly between the RCMs, while the resolution and the driving global model have less impact on the pattern of the model bias. The RCMs are mostly able to represent the seasonality of wind speed on the Plateau but miss important details in complex terrain related to local wind systems. Most models show no significant changes in near-surface mean wind speed until the end of the 21st century. The model ensemble changes range from a 7% decrease to a 6% increase with an ensemble mean decrease of 1 to 2%. Due to model biases, the scale mismatch between model grid and station observations and the missing representation of local winds in the simulations, the changes need to be interpreted with utmost care. Future assessments might lead to major revisions even for the sign of the projected changes, in particular over complex terrain.

Torrential rainfall and floods have had devastating impacts on civilizations throughout history. Thus, understanding long-term characteristics of extreme precipitation is necessary to identify physical mechanisms involved in such events and to be able to assess, not only the past, but also the present and future risk of extreme precipitation for society. However, the scarce spatial and temporal distribution of existing datasets on extreme precipitation complicates a detailed study of such events in the paleo climate context. In this study, we employ the newly produced seamless simulations from the Community Earth System Model v1.2.2 that covers the period from 1501 BC to 1849 AD to analyze the daily extreme precipitation before the preindustrial period. We explore the statistical characteristics of extreme precipitation and their association with natural external forcing, such as changes in the orbital parameters, solar cycle, insolation, and volcanic eruptions. For this, we applied to the simulations an extreme value analysis by adopting a peak-over-threshold method (Coles et al., 2001). The 99th percentile of daily precipitation anomalies with respect to 1501BC - 1849AD are taken as the extreme values and these extremes are fitted to the Generalized Pareto Distribution to create time-stationary and covariate models (GPD models) at each grid point. The stationary GPD model shows that over the mid-latitudes, high scale and negative shape parameters predominate in the Pacific while the opposite condition occurs in the Atlantic sector. Over the Southern Ocean, low scale and negative shape parameters are more common. The covariate GPD models indicate some connection between the external forcing and extreme precipitation. The changes in the orbital parameters are slightly connected to the extreme precipitation over the tropical Atlantic and southern Indian oceans. Among all the forcing, the volcanic eruptions are the most influential in the extreme precipitation during the past 3350 years. The return periods of extreme precipitation decrease over the tropical Pacific, and the mid-latitude oceans and lands after volcanic eruptions, indicating that such eruptions likely increase the occurrence of extreme precipitation in these regions. Over the regions where a decrease in extreme precipitation is followed after the eruptions, such as India, Australia, and eastern Asia, the return periods decrease after volcanic eruptions. Overall, our study provides a long-term continuous view on the global extreme precipitation, which elucidates some complementary information to the currently available proxy and instrumental observations on extreme precipitation events. Coles, S., Bawa, J., Trenner, L., & Dorazio, P. (2001). An introduction to statistical modeling of extreme values (Vol. 208, p. 208). London: Springer.

Extratropical cyclones, a major phenomenon of the mid‐latitude atmospheric dynamics, show strong variability over a range of time scales. Future projections hint at an increase of cyclonic intensity and the associated precipitation, an important fact to be considered when developing future risk assessments. This review presents a first overview of studies which (a) puts the current variability and projected future climate changes of extratropical cyclone characteristics in a long‐term perspective, (b) shows connections to natural external forcings, and (c) deepens our understanding of cyclone intensification processes for past climate periods. We summarize the current state of knowledge for two periods in the past—the last millennium and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21,000 years ago). For these two periods, the sparse information from paleo proxy archives are compared to climate modeling results on global and regional scales. For example, strong changes of the climate mean state, induced by orbital forcing and associated feedbacks, show strong effects on different cyclone characteristics, for example, a southward shift of the storm tracks over the North Atlantic during the LGM. Other findings indicate that dynamic processes could play at least an equally important role as thermodynamic processes for the variations of cyclone‐induced precipitation. This is in contrast to the projected future changes in cyclone‐related precipitation, which are driven primarily by thermodynamic processes. The review demonstrates how a paleoclimatic view can foster an extended process understanding and be instrumental to better understand future changes in extratropical cyclones and associated characteristics. This article is categorized under: Paleoclimates and Current Trends > Modern Climate Change

International audience; Estimating the likelihood of compound climate extremes such as concurrent drought and heatwaves or compound precipitation and wind speed extremes is important for assessing climate risks. Typically, simulations from climate models are used to assess future risks, but it is largely unknown how well the current generation of models represents compound extremes. Here, we introduce a new metric that measures whether the tails of bivariate distributions show a similar dependence structure across different datasets. We analyse compound precipitation and wind extremes in reanalysis data and different high-resolution simulations for central Europe. A state-of-the-art reanalysis dataset (ERA5) is compared to simulations with a weather model (Weather Research and Forecasting - WRF) either driven by observation-based boundary conditions or a global circulation model (Community Earth System Model - CESM) under present-day and future conditions with strong greenhouse gas forcing (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 - RCP8.5). Over the historical period, the high-resolution WRF simulations capture precipitation and wind extremes as well as their response to orographic effects more realistically than ERA5. Thus, WRF simulations driven by observation-based boundary conditions are used as a benchmark for evaluating the dependence structure of wind and precipitation extremes. Overall, boundary conditions in WRF appear to be the key factor in explaining differences in the dependence behaviour between strong wind and heavy precipitation between simulations. In comparison, external forcings (RCP8.5) are of second order. Our approach offers new methodological tools to evaluate climate model simulations with respect to compound extremes.

Earth system models show wide disagreement when simulating the climate of the continents at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This disagreement may be related to a variety of factors, including model resolution and an incomplete representation of Earth system processes. To assess the importance of resolution and land-atmosphere feedbacks on the climate of Europe, we performed an iterative, asynchronously coupled land-atmosphere modelling experiment that combined a global climate model, a regional climate model, and a dynamic vegetation model. The regional climate and land cover models were run at high (18 km) resolution over a domain covering the ice-free regions of Europe. Asynchronous coupling between the regional climate model and the vegetation model showed that the land-atmosphere coupling achieves quasi-equilibrium after four iterations. Modelled climate and land cover agree reasonably well with independent reconstructions based on pollen and other paleoenvironmental proxies. To assess the importance of land cover on the LGM climate of Europe, we performed a sensitivity test where we used LGM climate but present day land cover as boundary conditions. These simulations show that the LGM land-atmosphere feedback leads to colder and drier conditions around the Alps and a warmer and drier climate in southeastern Europe. Even in mid-latitude Europe where the land-atmosphere coupling strength is generally weak, and under glacial conditions with a southward displacement of the storm track and increased importance of the Atlantic, regional climate is significantly influenced by land cover.

Several sensitivity experiments with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model version 3.8.1 have been performed to find the optimal parameterization setup for precipitation amounts and patterns around Mount Kenya at a convection-permitting scale of 1 km. Hereby, the focus is on the cumulus scheme, with tests of the Kain-Fritsch, the Grell-Freitas and no cumulus parameterization for the parent and all nested domains. Besides, two long wave radiation schemes and two planetary boundary layer parameterizations are evaluated. Additionally, different nesting ratios and numbers of nests are tested. The precipitation amounts and patterns are compared against a large number of weather station data and three gridded observational data sets. The temporal correlation of monthly precipitation sums show that fewer nests lead to a more constrained simulation and hence, the correlation is higher. The pattern correlation with weather station data confirms this result, but when comparing it to the most recent gridded observational data set the difference between the number of nests and nesting ratios are marginal. The precipitation patterns further reveal that the Grell-Freitas cumulus parameterization provides the best results, when it comes to precipitation patterns and amounts. If no cumulus parameterization is used, the temporal correlation between gridded and in-situ observations and simulated precipitation is especially poor with more nests. Moreover, even if the patterns are captured quite well, a clear overestimation in the precipitation amounts is observed around Mount Kenya when using no cumulus scheme at all. The Grell-Freitas cumulus parameterization also provides reasonable results for 2-metre temperature with respect to gridded observational and weather station data.

The parameter uncertainty of a climate model represents the spectrum of the results obtained by perturbing its empirical and unconfined parameters used to represent sub-grid scale processes. In order to assess a model reliability and to better understand its limitations and sensitivity to different physical processes, the spread of model parameters needs to be carefully investigated. This is particularly true for Regional Climate Models (RCMs), whose performances are domain-dependent. In this study, the parameter space of the RCM COSMO-CLM is investigated for the CORDEX Central Asia domain, using a Perturbed Physics Ensemble (PPE) obtained by performing 1-year long simulations with different parameter values. The main goal is to characterize the parameter uncertainty of the model, and to determine the most sensitive parameters for the region. Moreover, the presented experiments are used to study the effect of several parameters on the simulation of selected variables for sub-regions characterized by different climate conditions, assessing by which degree it is possible to improve model performances by properly selecting parameter inputs in each case. Finally, the paper explores the model parameter sensitivity over different domains, tackling the question of transferability of an RCM model setup to different regions of study. Results show that only a sub-set of model parameters present relevant changes in model performances for different parameter values. Importantly, for almost all parameter inputs, the model shows an opposite behavior among different clusters and regions. This indicates that conducting a calibration of the model against observations to determine optimal parameter values for the Central Asia domain is particularly challenging: in this case, the use of objective calibration methods is highly necessary. Finally, the sensitivity of the model to parameters perturbation for Central Asia is different than the one observed for Europe, suggesting that an RCM should be re-tuned, and its parameter uncertainty properly investigated, when setting up model-experiments to different domains of study.

Funding: National Science Foundation grants 1925417, 1023672, and 0909541 to J.R.M., and 1824770 to J.G.M. and F.M.L. funded this research, as well as support to A.I.W. and J.R.M. from the John Fell Oxford University Press (OUP) Research Fund and All Souls College, Oxford. Clare Hall, Cambridge provided additional support to J.R.M. through the Sir Nicholas Shackleton fellowship. F.M.L. also acknowledges support from an Irish Research Council Laureate Award (CLICAB project, IRCLA/2017/303). Swiss National Science Foundation grant 18001 funded C.C.R. and W.M.K. European Research Council grant 820047 under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme supported M.S. A.B. was supported by Marie Curie Career Integration Grant CIG14-631752. The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE triggered a power struggle that ultimately ended the Roman Republic and, eventually, the Ptolemaic Kingdom, leading to the rise of the Roman Empire. Climate proxies and written documents indicate that this struggle occurred during a period of unusually inclement weather, famine, and disease in the Mediterranean region; historians have previously speculated that a large volcanic eruption of unknown origin was the most likely cause. Here we show using well-dated volcanic fallout records in six Arctic ice cores that one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the past 2,500 y occurred in early 43 BCE, with distinct geochemistry of tephra deposited during the event identifying the Okmok volcano in Alaska as the source. Climate proxy records show that 43 and 42 BCE were among the coldest years of recent millennia in the Northern Hemisphere at the start of one of the coldest decades. Earth system modeling suggests that radiative forcing from this massive, high-latitude eruption led to pronounced changes in hydroclimate, including seasonal temperatures in specific Mediterranean regions as much as 7 °C below normal during the 2 y period following the eruption and unusually wet conditions. While it is difficult to establish direct causal linkages to thinly documented historical events, the wet and very cold conditions from this massive eruption on the opposite side of Earth probably resulted in crop failures, famine, and disease, exacerbating social unrest and contributing to political realignments throughout the Mediterranean region at this critical juncture of Western civilization. Postprint

In this study the COSMO-CLM sensitivity to parameters perturbation is investigated under different climate forcings. The main aim is to understandhow the uncertainty of the model propagates in different climate regimes and whether the model presents structural stability when different forcings are considered. For this purpose, two Physically Perturbed Ensembles (PPEs) are produced, each composed of 35 realizations, at two different periods of the past: the Mid-Holocene, 6000 years ago, and the Pre-industrial period. The two periods present significant differences in the seasonal values of incoming insolation due to changes in the Earth’s orbital configuration. The effects of these changes on the Earth’s radiative balance, at least when considering seasonal values, are of the same magnitude of the changes due to GHGs emissions of the worst case Representative Concentration Pathway scenario (RCP8.5). Two additional ensembles, but with a lower number of components, are produced in order to determine the role of the boundaries with respect to the one of changes in the climate forcings.Preliminary analyses show that the model presents a structurally stable behavior in the two periods for several variables, in particular when considering climate mean statistics. Some parameters do not produce sensible changes in the model behavior in both periods. This confirms that conducting a calibration of the model only on a restricted set of parameters is a good praxis when willing to simulate future or past climate change. On the other hand, some parameters show remarkable changes with respect to a reference simulation: these differences are maintained in the two different regimes, pointing again to a relatively good model stability, but also to a very similar sensitivity of the model to the different forcings. Finally, when considering the ensembles with the same forcings but different boundaries, the effect of the boundaries seems to play a major role. This is particularly important for climate projections using the COSMO-CLM: a model PPE would probably not be particularly relevant in order to characterize the model uncertainty, but more attention should instead be paid to consider a wide ensemble of independent boundary realizations with different GCMs

Precipitation patterns and climate variability in East Africa and Western South America present high heterogeneity and complexity. This complexity is a result of large-scale and regional controls, such as surrounding oceans, lakes and topography. The combined effect of these controls has implications on precipitation and temperature, and hence, on water availability, biodiversity and ecosystem services. This study focuses on the impact of different physics parameterization in high-resolution experiments performed over equatorial regions with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, and how these options affect the representation of precipitation in those regions.As expected, weather and climate in equatorial regions are driven by physical processes different to those important in the mid-latitudes. Hence, it is necessary to test the parameterizations available in the WRF model. Several sensitivity simulations are performed over Kenya and Peru nesting the WRF model inside the state-of-the-art ERA5 reanalysis. A cascade of increasing grid resolutions is used in these simulations, reaching the spatial resolutions of 3 and 1 km in the innermost domains, and thus, convection permitting scales. Parameterization options of the planetary boundary layer (PBL), lake model, radiation, cumulus and microphysics schemes are changed, and their sensitivity to precipitation is tested. The year 2008 is simulated for each of the sensitivity simulations. This year is chosen as a good representative of precipitation dynamics and temperature, as it is neither abnormally wet or hot, nor dry or cold over Kenya and Peru. The simulated precipitation driven by the ERA5 reanalysis is compared against station data obtained from the WMO, and over Kenya additionally against observations from the Centre for Training and Integrated Research in ASAL Development (CETRAD).Precipitation is strongly underestimated when adopting a typical parameterization setup for the mid-latitudes. However, results indicate that precipitation amounts and also patterns are substantially improved when changing the cumulus and PBL parameterisations. This strong increase in the simulated precipitation is obtained when using the Grell-Freitas ensemble, RRTM and the Yonsei University schemes for cumulus, long-wave radiation and planetary boundary layer, respectively. During some summer months, the accumulated precipitation is improved by up to 100 mm (80 %) compared to mid-latitudes configuration in several regions of the domains (near the Andes in Peru and over the flatlands in Kenya). Additionally, because the 1- and 2-way nesting options show a similar performance with respect to precipitation, the 1-way nesting option is preferred, as it does not overwrite the solutions in the parent domains. Hence, discontinuous solutions related to switching off the cumulus parameterization can be avoided.

The Mediterranean has been identified as particularly vulnerable to climate change, yet a high-resolution temperature reconstruction extending back into the Medieval Warm Period is still lacking. Here we present such a record from a high-elevation site on Mt. Smolikas in northern Greece, where some of Europe’s oldest trees provide evidence of warm season temperature variability back to 730 CE. The reconstruction is derived from 192 annually resolved, latewood density series from ancient living and relict Pinus heldreichii trees calibrating at r1911-2015 = 0.73 against regional July-September (JAS) temperatures. Although the recent 1985-2014 period was the warmest 30-year interval (JAS Twrt.1961-90 = +0.71°C) since the 11th century, temperatures during the 9-10th centuries were even warmer, including the warmest reconstructed 30-year period from 876-905 (+0.78°C). These differences between warm periods are statistically insignificant though. Several distinct cold episodes punctuate the Little Ice Age, albeit the coldest 30-year period is centered during high medieval times from 997-1026 (-1.63°C). Comparison with reconstructions from the Alps and Scandinavia shows that a similar cold episode occurred in central Europe but was absent at northern latitudes. The reconstructions also reveal different millennial-scale temperature trends (NEur = -0.73°C/1000 years, CEur = -0.13 °C, SEur = +0.23°C) potentially triggered by latitudinal changes in summer insolation due to orbital forcing. These features, the opposing millennial-scale temperature trends and the medieval multi-decadal cooling recorded in Central Europe and the Mediterranean, are not well captured in state-of-the-art climate model simulations.

Moisture transport and Atmospheric Rivers (ARs) over the Northeastern Atlantic are a very relevant process for the inter-annual variability of precipitation over Western Europe. Based on a long-term transient simulation (850-2100CE) from the CESM model, we have showed that moisture transport towards Western Europe (using the vertically integrated horizontal water vapor transport, IVT) has been increasing significantly since pre-industrial period, in a clear association with the global warming trend. Both current and projected changes (using RCP 8.5) significantly exceed the range given by inter-annual to inter-decadal internal/external variability observed during the last millennium.We have checked the emergence of the temperature, IVT and precipitation signals in Iberia and the UK, showing that while the first two have now clearly emerged from the pre-warming state, precipitation series are still slightly below that threshold. Nevertheless, projections clearly show an increase in rainfall at higher latitudes (i in phase with a warmer and moister atmosphere); and a decrease at lower latitudes decoupled from the overall increase in moisture availability. Additionally we have explored the role played by large-scale circulation and atmospheric dynamics for these contrasting projections. Overall, results show that a poleward migration of moisture corridors and ARs explain a significant fraction of these projected trends. Based on the Clausius–Clapeyron relation we have separated the thermodynamical from dynamical changes. We also show how that a significant increase in subtropical anticyclonic activity over Iberia is responsible for: i) dynamical circulation changes; ii) a shortening of the wet season; iii) to less efficient precipitation regimes in the region. These results highlight the urge to adapt to a drying trend in Mediterranean-type climates, as a consequence of Global Warming. The financial support for this work was possible through the following FCT project: HOLMODRIVE - North Atlantic Atmospheric Patterns influence on Western Iberia Climate: From the Lateglacial to the Present [PTDC/CTA-GEO/29029/2017]

To understand the processes that govern the climate response and feedbacks, modelling paleoclimate states offers a unique possibility to have insights into the mechanisms that convert a modified forcing into climate changes. In spite of the benefit of using global climate models (GCMs) for reproducing other climate states, their spatial resolution insufficiently represents regional and local climates, especially over complex topography. In this study, we bridge this scale gap by using a dynamical downscaling with the regional climate model Weather Forecast Research Model version 3.8.1. that is driven by the fully coupled Community Climate System Model version 4. Focussing on the Alpine region, we obtain climate information at 2 km resolution at present-day (perpetual 1990 AD conditions), the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21 kya) and Marine Isotope Stage 4 (MIS4, 65 kya). The benefit of the dynamical downscaling approach is illustrated by analysing the PD and LGM simulations with the proxy evidences. The orbital forcing response is assessed by the comparing MIS4 to LGM simulations. Since the height of the Laurentide and Scandinavian ice sheets may still have some uncertainties, we carry out two additional dynamically downscaled simulations where the thickness of the ice-sheets is modified to 66% and 125% of the LGM level.Focusing on temperature and precipitation, we observe that the dynamical downscaling approach improves the representation of the Alpine climate agreeing the proxy evidences better than the GCM, especially during colder months. Furthermore, the MIS4 orbital forcing shows an increase of temperature over the Alpine region, in particular at low levels and during colder months. In addition, the precipitation is slightly increased over low-altitude areas, but strongly over the mountains, in particular in the western Alps during colder months. This increase of precipitation is the result of an increment of water content due to the temperature rise. The outcome of using different ice-sheet thicknesses shows that temperature remains almost unchanged but the precipitation patterns is modified showing differences over southwestern and northeastern Alps, especially during colder months. This change in the precipitation pattern is explained by the modification of the atmospheric dynamics over the North Atlantic and Europe, in particular by the orientation and the shift of the larger-scale wind patterns, i.e., wind stream and storm tracks.In conclusion, we demonstrate that the regional dynamical downscaling is a valuable method for representing paleoclimates at a finer scale. Moreover, a different orbital forcing mostly impacts on temperature, especially during colder months. Whereas a modified thickness of the Laurentide and Scandinavian ice-sheets mainly impacts on precipitation pattern, in particular the southwestern and northeastern regions during colder months.

Extratropical cyclones of type Vb develop over the western Mediterranean and move north-eastward, leading to heavy precipitation over central Europe and posing a major natural hazard. Thus, this study aims at assessing their sensitivity to climate change and deepens the understanding of the underlying processes of Vb-type cyclones. The analysis is based on global climate model output, which is dynamically downscaled for extreme Vb cyclones. Thereby two periods are compared: the reference period 1979 to 2013, and the future period 2070 to 2099 under the representative concentration pathway RCP8.5. Additionally, we include the analysis from a large ensemble (LENS), where 25 ensemble members are analysed for the reference period 1990–2005 and the future period 2071–2080. The results show a reduction of Vb cyclones from 3.2 events per year during the reference period to only 2.1 Vb cyclones per year at the end of the 21st century. This result is supported by the LENS, which shows a significant reduction from 2.9 to 2.6 Vb events per year. This reduction is induced by a northward shift of cyclone track over Europe in the future. To gain insight into the impact of Vb cyclones, 10 Vb cyclones with the most intense precipitation over the Alps are selected and dynamically downscaled for each period, separately. Although the overall precipitation in the innermost domain stays the same in the two periods, results indicate that future Vb events tend to affect more strongly the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, while the impact in the Alpine region becomes slightly ameliorated compared to the current conditions. Furthermore, the dynamical downscaling exhibits an increased temperature contrast between the Mediterranean Sea and the European land for these 10 events in future. This contrast leads to a higher instability at coastal areas and thus explains the changed precipitation pattern.

Comprehensive flood risk modeling is crucial for understanding, assessing, and mitigating flood risk. Modeling extreme events is a well-established practice in the atmospheric and hydrological sciences and in the insurance industry. Several specialized models are used to research extreme events including atmospheric circulation models, hydrological models, hydrodynamic models, and damage and loss models. Although these model types are well established, and coupling two to three of these models has been successful, no assessment of a full and comprehensive model chain from the atmospheric to local scale flood loss models has been conducted. The present study introduces a model chain setup incorporating a GCM/RCM to model atmospheric processes, a hydrological model to estimate the catchment's runoff reaction to precipitation inputs, a hydrodynamic model to identify flood-affected areas, and a damage and loss model to estimate flood losses. Such coupling requires building interfaces between the individual models that are coherent in terms of spatial and temporal resolution and therefore calls for several pre- and post-processing steps for the individual models as well as for a computationally efficient strategy to identify and model extreme events. The results show that a coupled model chain allows for good representation of runoff for both long-term runoff characteristics and extreme events, provided a bias correction on precipitation input is applied. While the presented approach for deriving loss estimations for particular extreme events leads to reasonable results, two issues have been identified that need to be considered in further applications: (i) the identification of extreme events in long-term GCM simulations for downscaling and (ii) the representativeness of the vulnerability functions for local conditions.