Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Changes in the climate system
in Europe that is relevant for assessing the impacts
of climate change, and for informing adaptation
planning.
• Heat extremes can have severe impacts on society,
and they are the most deadly climatic hazard in
Europe.
• Mean precipitation is a key climate variable with major
importance for all ecosystems and social systems.
• Heavy precipitation can cause floods, with
considerable impacts on social-economic sectors and
ecosystem services.
• Wind storms are a significant weather hazard that
can cause considerable damage in various parts of
Europe.
• Hail is responsible for significant damage to
buildings, crops, vehicles and infrastructure in
affected regions. However, the local nature of hail
makes it difficult to monitor and to detect trends
using classical observational networks.
Meteorological droughts are discussed jointly with
hydrological droughts in Section 4.3.4.
Data quality and data needs
The presented atmospheric climate variables, with
the exception of hail, are a subset of the Essential
Climate Variables (ECVs) defined through the Global
Climate Observing System (GCOS) (see Section 7.1.1).
Spatial and temporal coverage of the observed climate
variables varies significantly across the globe; it is
generally best over Europe and North America.
Regular instrumental measurements of temperature
and precipitation started around 1850; since then
monthly information about global temperature and
precipitation have become available. A dense network
of stations across the globe, and particularly in Europe,
now provide regular monitoring of key atmospheric
climate variables, using standardised measurements,
quality control and homogeneity procedures at
European level. However, even where sufficient data
are available, several problems can limit their use for
analysis. These problems are mainly connected with
1) limitations of distributing data in high spatial and
temporal resolution by many countries, 2) unavailability
of data in easy-to-use digital format, and 3) lack of data
homogeneity.
In November 2014, the European Commission signed
a Delegation Agreement with ECMWF (European
Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) for
the implementation of the Copernicus Climate
Change Service (C3S). The C3S will provide access to
information for monitoring and predicting climate
change and will, therefore, help to support adaptation
and mitigation. It benefits from a sustained network of
in situ and satellite-based observations, reanalysis of
the Earth’s climate, and modelling scenarios based on a
variety of climate projections (see Section 7.1.2).
70 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report