Seasonal forecasts of variables like near-surface temperature or precipitation are becoming increasingly important for a wide range of stakeholders. Due to the many possibilities of recalibrating, combining, and verifying ensemble forecasts, there are ambiguities of which methods are most suitable. To address this we compare approaches how to process and verify multi-model seasonal forecasts based on a scientific assessment pe...

Heat exposure constitutes a major threat for European workers, with significant impacts on the workers’ health and productivity. Climate projections over the next decades show a continuous and accelerated warming over Europe together with longer, more intense and more frequent heatwaves on regional and local scales. In this work, we assess the increased risk in future occupational heat stress levels using the wet bulb globe te...

The influence of uncertainties in gridded observational reference data on regional climate model (RCM) evaluation is quantified on a pan‐European scale. Three different reference data sets are considered: the coarse‐resolved E‐OBS data set, a compilation of regional high‐resolution gridded products (HR) and the European‐scale MESAN reanalysis. Five high‐resolution ERA‐Interim‐driven RCM experiments of the EURO‐CORDEX initiativ...

Ensembles of regional climate models are widely used to obtain climate change signals and to evaluate associated uncertainties over a specific region. These models are forced by general circulation models ( GCMs ) at their lateral boundaries. The most recent multi‐model ensembles projects – ENSEMBLES and CORDEX – rely on a limited set of about 10 GCMs per greenhouse gas emission scenario. It was shown previously that in partic...

Climate indices facilitate the interpretation of expected climate change impacts for many sectors in society, economy, and ecology. The new localized data set of climatic change signals for temperature and precipitation presented by Zubler et al. (Clim Change, 2013) is applied for an analysis of frequently used climate indices in Switzerland. The indices considered are: number of summer days and tropical nights, growing season...

Accurate assessment of the magnitude and frequency of extreme wind speed is of fundamental importance for many safety, engineering and reinsurance applications. We utilize the spatial and temporal consistency of the European Centre for Medium Range Forecasts ERA‐40 reanalysis data to determine the frequency of extreme winds associated with wind storms over the eastern North Atlantic and Europe. Two parameters are investigated:...