1. 1
Will climate change increase the risk for critical infrastructure failures in Europe due to extreme precipitation?
EGU
Vienna
April 2016
Katrin Nissen and Uwe Ulbrich
Institute of Meteorology
Freie Universität Berlin
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no The contents of this presentation are the author's views. The European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

2. Heavy Precipitation The RAIN Project
Risk Analysis of Infrastructure Networks in response to extreme weather
Heavy Precipitation

3. Which thresholds are relevant?
Regulations for drainage systems
Stakeholder inteviews
10-year return values
amount intensity

4. Example for impacts High Amounts High Intensities
Large-scale summer flood
Central Europe May/June 2013
Small-scale convective event
Berlin August 2013

5. Data EURO-CORDEX 0.11° (~12 km) daily: 10 simulations
3-hourly: 6 simulations
DRIVING GCM
RCA4
RACMO22E
CCLM4-8-17
HIRHAM5
MPI-ESM
day, 3 hour
day
EC-EARTH
HADGEM2
CM5A-MR
CM5
Scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5

6. Thresholds 10-year return value (1971-2000)
High Amounts High Intensities
mm/day mm/3hours
Multi-model ensemble mean

7. Identification of events
Identification of areas in which the 10-year return value is exceeded
Tracking in time and space
Information on:
Duration
Size
Severity (duration,size and amount)
Aug Aug Aug Aug Aug 13
Example:
August 2002
5 days
km2
[mm]

8. Climate change signal 8 High Amounts High Intensities
(accumulation 1-3 days) (3-hourly)
RCP8.5
Difference in number of events between
and RCP8.5 scenario

9. Climate change signal High Amounts High Intensities Central Europe
Iberian
Peninsula
Present day
RCP
seasonal cycle size
seasonal cycle size

10. Conclusions
YES: The multi-model ensemble forced with RCP8.5 greenhouse gas emissions predicts an increase in the number of heavy precipitation events posing a risk on infrastructure
Strongest increase in North-Western Europe
Up to 4-fold increase in number of high intensity events
Numbers double for events with high amounts in some regions