Extreme precipitation over the UK in the CANARI large ensemble   

Speaker: Oscar Martínez-Alvarado 

Chair(S): Maria Russo 

wednesday JUNE 26, 2024, 13:00

ABSTRACT

As the climate warms, extreme surface winds and precipitation are expected to change in complex ways. Understanding these changes is crucial for the country’s preparedness against climate change. CANARI is a 5-year science programme led by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and including seven NERC research centres and the Met Office. The aim of CANARI is to tackle questions on climate change in the Arctic-North Atlantic region and the relevant impacts on the UK. CANARI incorporates a strong numerical modelling component, which includes the development of a global single-model initial-condition large ensemble (LE). The LE consists of 40 members, running at N216 resolution (~60 km) and spanning 150 years in a historical (1950-2014) and a future (2015-2100) period. The CANARI modelling programme also includes regional climate model simulations driven by the LE. However, rather than attempting to downscale the totality of the LE, a strategy based on the identification of relevant cases has been devised. These cases consist of extreme events to compile a collection of extreme windstorms on one hand and extreme-precipitation events on the other, both affecting the UK. In this contribution we present the collection of storms that have been identified in the historical period. These events are being classified in terms of their large-scale drivers, for example by looking at the presence or lack of enhanced moisture transport and by whether the driving system is mobile or slow-moving in the case of extreme precipitation events. The results are contrasted against ERA5 to evaluate how well the present climate is being represented by the model in this period. The status of the storm identification for the currently on-going simulations of the future period will also be discussed.  

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