Future Weather

NB This work is still under construction. At KNMI we are developing a model infrastructure to systematically examine how present-day weather could look in a warmer or cooler climate. This work could help making more clear what the impacts of climate change are and how they may change in the future. We have written a little article (in Dutch) on it, in which we explain the basic methodology in a little bit more detail (https://www.knmi.nl/over-het-knmi/nieuws/het-weer-van-vandaag-in-de-toekomst). In that article we applied the methodology to the flooding associated with storm Boris (September 2024). Below we show another illustration of recent flooding.

Link to live view: here

Link to specific cases: here

Ardeche floods (16-18 October 2024)

Between 16 and 18 October 2024 the Ardeche region in France experience extreme precipitation. Extremely high precipitation amounts were recorded (up to 600mm in 48 hours). In our intermediate resolution regional model RACMO (12km), which runs operationally, we simulated the event and examined how it could have looked in a -1.5 degree cooler or a +1.5 degree warmer climate. These simulations still have to be analysed properly (especially the peak in the North of Italy) and redone at higher resolution (2.5km) with HCLIM. Nevertheless it is clear that compared to the past, especially the peak-precipitation amounts are higher in the current climate, and will further increase towards the future. Averaged over the box however, the average precipitation does increase much less. This is a typical climate-change response: the extremes increase more rapidly that the average. Given that peak water-infiltration capacities are not expected to change in the future, this implies that events like the Ardeche floods will most likely cause more trouble in future.

Colder climate (-1.5C below present)

Warmer climate (+1.5C above present)

Below there is a coarse-grained 3d-image of the precipitation. You should be able to move through it. The landscape illustrates how local the peaks are.

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