Extreme meteorological and hydrological events, such as windstorms and flooding made up around 72% of the natural disasters occurring worldwide between 2000-2019 (UNDRR 2020). The assessment of extreme winds and precipitation and their projected future change is of great importance for adaptation planning. The recently published work of Outten and Sobolowski [2021] assessed the extreme winds over Europe (Figure 1) and their projected change over the 21st Century. A criticism raised during the review process was that only 15 of the EURO-CORDEX simulations were analyzed. However, when the analysis began, they were the only simulation available with the required fields. Today, there are around 50 ensemble members and while the analysis of such a large model ensemble would be time consuming, it would allow for more robust statistics regarding projected changes of extreme wind events. This more comprehensive analysis would be expected to form the basis of multiple future papers. Despite the limitations of the previous study, the authors have received requests for the underlying dataset, most prominently from a colleague in a major reinsurance firm. This highlights the interest that exists for a dataset containing a comprehensive assessment of extreme events in EURO-CORDEX. Since the strategic project EMULATE produced the codes necessary to apply Extreme Value Analysis (EVA) to EURO- CORDEX simulations, it would be very possible to apply the methods to the complete archive of simulations, and to even expand the assessments to include extreme precipitation. The FTI will create a unique dataset containing a comprehensive assessment of extreme winds and extreme precipitation in the EURO-CORDEX simulations.

This project is targeting ‘low-hanging fruit’ by capitalising on the work done in the EMULATE strategic project. The dataset produced will be published, along with a short paper detailing how the assessment was undertaken. We expect the dataset to form the basis of a paper assessing the regional extreme precipitation over Europe and the changes projected for the 21st Century. A short letter may also be developed from this dataset as an update to the Outten and Sobolowski paper (2021), with a more comprehensive assessment of extreme winds. Storing the timing of extreme winds and precipitation also opens the door for a study on compound extreme events involving the co-occurrence or subsequence of wind and precipitation extremes.

The work consists of three stages. The first is to gather the required data from the simulations and perform basic post-processing to store them locally in a standardized form. The second stage is to analyze the wind and precipitation fields using the annual maxima and peaks-over-threshold approaches from EVA to create a dataset of return levels, distribution parameters, and event timing, for extreme winds and precipitation at every grid point in every available model. The final stage is to write a draft paper detailing the methodology and dataset, to be published along with the dataset.