DestinE Use Case: Simulating the Future of Extreme Events

In a nutshell

An application, “HydroMet”, is developed to provide more accurate statistics of extreme rainfalls and other hydrological extremes, as well as to estimate how climate change might affect future extreme events.

To achieve this, the application leverages the capabilities of the Climate DT data stream and summarises the events in a catalogue.

The users obtain access to large amounts of homogenous information regarding past, present and future extreme rainfall events at the local-to-regional scales.

Technical Overview

Use Case Topic: Extreme Weather

Scale of the Use Case: National / Regional

Policy addressed: Climate adaptation

Providers: CSC-IT Center for Science

Challenge

Such hazards as thunderstorms, cloudbursts, floods, GLOFs, heat and cold waves have a devastating impact on communities and the natural ecosystem. Climate variability has further exacerbated the frequency and impact of such events, thereby calling for an improved monitoring and prediction system.

Understanding the dynamics of these phenomena and the associated risks could help closing the knowledge gap and minimising the loss and damage from future extreme hydrometeorological events.

DestinE Solution

The HydroMet application provides statistics of hydrological extremes and estimates of the possible changes induced by climate change in future extreme events. This is made possible by identifying extreme rainfall events in the Climate DT data stream, that ultimately are summarised in an event catalogue.

The use case provides information about, for example, the spatial and temporal extent of an event, precipitation amounts and return time, the frequency of an extreme event in a particular area.

The application is based on two different codes developed by the German Meterological Service Deutsche Wetterdienst (DWD), that has done considerable efforts to anticipate excess rain since several decades.

KOSTRA2020 is the latest version of KOSTRA-DWD, a coordinated effort across Federal states to develop methods for extreme evaluation. The system, developed through three decades, provides data about precipitation levels, duration and the annual return interval.

CatRaRE or Catalogue of Radar-based heavy Rainfall Events, is a software package able to detect and define extreme rain events and at the same time generate a catalogue with meteorological and geographical information for each event.

Visual of the schematic overview of the two criteria that define single events, as part of the HydroMet application that aims at simulating the future of extreme events. — Schematic overview of the two criteria that define single events. Spatial independency

Impact

With these powerful tools as a starting point, the use case adapts the software to extract the relevant information from the high-resolution Climate DT data stream, generating a catalogue of simulated extreme events that extract information about the size, duration, intensity and other variables of these simulated flash floods or extreme precipitation events.

Therefore, the application allows users to obtain large amounts of homogenous information and past, present and future extreme rainfall events at the local-to-regional scales where the impacts are felt and the adaptation decisions are taken.

DAS-Basisdienst “Klima und Wasser”, the German operational coordination framework for adaptation strategies on Climate and Water is the main use identified.