Europe is expected to experience an increasing frequency of heat and drought events in the future, with the region being particularly prone to successive year-to-year occurrences of these extremes. These changes in heat and drought frequency depend not only on the degree of global warming, but also on the decadal variability of the climate system. In this project, we perform a thorough attribution analysis of the decadal variability of heat and drought in Europe to atmospheric and oceanic drivers. This involves examining the influence of anthropogenic forcings, such as greenhouse gases and aerosols, while quantifying the inherent uncertainties in frequency and intensity arising from internal atmospheric variability and ocean circulation.

For this purpose, we will use Single Model Initial Condition Ensembles (SMILEs) for both factual and counterfactual simulations. By providing large samples of extremes under different climatic conditions, this allows robust analysis that disentangles anthropogenic influences from natural variability. In addition, we plan to investigate a variety of metrics related to socio-economic, health and agricultural impacts. Our goal is to establish an attribution framework that accounts not only for mean global warming, but also for decadal variability in the climate system, contributing to more nuanced and accurate attribution of extreme events.

Website: DECHEAT
Institution: Max Planck Institut für Meteorologie
Contact: Laura Suárez Gutiérrez, Wolfgang Müller, Victoria Dietz