Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Changes in the climate system
increase is consistent with rising temperatures (Lehmann
et al., 2015). Characteristics such as the likelihood and
magnitude of individual climate and weather extremes
(such as the heat waves in 2003 in central Europe and
in 2010 in eastern Europe) have also been attributed to
anthropogenic climate change (e.g. Stott et al., 2004; Pall
et al., 2011; Herring et al., 2014; Christidis et al., 2015).
Future changes in extremes
Confidence in projecting changes in the direction and
magnitude of climate extremes depends on the type
of extreme, the region and season, the amount and
quality of observational data, the level of understanding
of the underlying processes, and the reliability of their
simulation in models. Regional climate models with
very high resolution (1–2 km grid spacing) and with
explicit representation of convection processes, which
are typically used for weather forecasting, have recently
been used for the first time for regional-scale climate
change studies. Such models are particularly beneficial
for studying precipitation changes on daily and sub‐daily
time scales, which in turn improves the accuracy of
assessing heavy precipitation, flash floods, hail and other
extreme events (Kendon et al., 2014; Montesarchio et al.,
2014; Ban et al., 2015) (see Section 3.2 for more details).
The length, frequency and/or intensity of
record‐breaking temperature events is projected to
increase over most land areas globally and in Europe.
Furthermore, available climate projections agree that
the frequency of heavy precipitation events and/or the
proportion of total rainfall from heavy precipitation
events will increase in the 21st century over many
areas of the globe (IPCC, 2013a).
3.1.6 Tipping elements in the climate system
Anthropogenic climate change may trigger abrupt
and/or irreversible changes in large-scale climate
systems and processes, such as polar ice sheets,
ocean circulations, carbon reservoirs and various
non‐linear feedback processes (Lenton et al., 2008;
Good et al., 2011; Hansen et al., 2016) (see, for
example, Sections 3.2, 3.3 and 4.1). These risks are
known, among others, as large-scale singularities
or tipping elements in the climate system.
A comprehensive review is available in a recent
research report (Good et al., 2014). While the risk of
tipping elements is a key reason for mitigating climate
change, their assessment is beyond the scope of this
report.
68 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report