Internal Climate Variability and Extreme Temperatures over the Mediterranean

• Published in: Environmental Sciences Proceedings 2023-08, Vol.26 (1), p.57
• Main Authors: Christos Kourtesiotis, Quan Liu, Kostas Philippopoulos, Chris Tzanis, Daniela Matei, Helena Flocas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: climate model; climate system; extreme temperatures; internal variability
• ISSN: 2673-4931
• DOI: 10.3390/environsciproc2023026057

In this work, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology Grand Ensemble (MPI-GE) is used to quantify the climate system’s internal variability. The MPI-GE is a large ensemble of a single state-of-the-art comprehensive climate model and its use is crucial to evaluate average changes in summer monthly means and extreme temperatures. Initially, model simulations are examined in terms of their ability to accurately reproduce the observed climatic regimes in the Mediterranean region for the historical period. The ERA5 reanalysis dataset is employed as a reference and the corresponding trends and frequencies of occurrence of temperature-extreme events are compared between these datasets. Subsequently, the MPI-GE is used as a tool for examining the effect of the climate system’s internal variability focusing on the Mediterranean summer temperatures under different levels of global warming. Understanding and decoupling the effects of internal variability and anthropogenic forcing on climate trends remain a key challenge. It is found that in the rcp8.5 scenario, the frequency of summer extreme temperatures is higher than that in the rcp2.6 scenario. Especially in the Greek region, the frequency is 1.5 times higher in rcp8.5 than in rcp2.6