Convective hazards such as large hail and tornadoes are responsible for high economic losses, fatalities and injuries across the world, Europe, and Germany. There are insufficient observations to determine whether trends in such local phenomena exist, but previous findings within the CHECC I project suggest that such hazards, especially (very) large hail, have become more frequent in recent decades across large parts of Europe. These conclusions are based on the Additive Regression Convective Hazard Models (AR-CHaMo) that have been developed in CHECC I using the ERA5 reanalysis. The CHECC II project plans to extend the analysis by applying the AR-CHaMo models to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) to understand the future occurrence in Central Europe of (very) large hail and tornadoes. Future projections for the occurrence of these hazards will cover the period until 2100 and will be developed according to the different Shared Socioeconomic Paths (SSPs) scenarios. A second goal of CHECC II is to develop event sets for the occurrence of (very) large hail and tornadoes based on AR-CHaMo both for the past (using the ERA5 renalysis) and the future (using the CMIP6 projections). These event sets will allow to calculate the return period of certain impacts by using additional data on exposure and vulnerability. It is expected that these findings will help to develop appropriate mitigation strategies to reduce the hail and tornado risk in Central Europe.

Institution: European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL) e.V

Contact: Dr. Pieter Groenemeijer, Francesco Battaglioli