Worst-case European heat storylines generated using ensemble boosting | Communications Earth & Environment

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Worst-case European heat storylines generated using ensemble boosting

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Climate and Earth system modelling<br>Projection and prediction

Abstract<br>Extreme heat poses escalating socio-economic and ecological risks, yet the most severe high-impact heat extremes that would be possible today remain poorly understood. Using thousands of ensemble-boosting storylines, all plausible under current-climate conditions at least within the model world, we reveal the risk of far more intense and unprecedented heatwaves, which surpass historical extremes in both intensity and particularly in persistence by large margins, and greatly exceed levels considered extreme in a 3 °C warmer world. The most extreme heatwaves are preceded by severe soil moisture depletion, both locally and upstream of the region of extreme heat, as well as by strong ocean temperature gradients, with extremely warm anomalies in the nearby basins and cold anomalies in the subpolar North Atlantic region. Furthermore, our storyline simulations reveal an additional risk: worst-case heatwaves occur predominantly after another extreme heatwave. This highlights the potential for aggravated impacts due to decreased recovery times and intensified heat stress on humans, ecosystems and infrastructure made more vulnerable by the first event. Given the scale, intensity, and unprecedented successive and compounding nature of these worst-case heat storylines, we underscore the urgent need for well-informed adaptation strategies that sufficiently reflect these risks.

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Acknowledgements<br>We acknowledge the Swiss National Computing Centre (CSCS) for providing the necessary computational resources. We acknowledge the CESM2 Large Ensemble Community Project and supercomputing resources provided by the IBS Center for Climate Physics for producing the original 100-member CESM2 Large Ensemble. We also acknowledge three anonymous reviewers for their feedback.

Funding<br>This project and L.S.G. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action grant agreement No 101064940. Open access funding provided by Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

Author information<br>Author notesLaura Suarez-Gutierrez<br>Present address: Meteorology and Air Quality Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Authors and Affiliations<br>Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland<br>Laura Suarez-Gutierrez, Urs Beyerle & Erich M. Fischer

Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE), Paris, France<br>Laura Suarez-Gutierrez & Robert Vautard

Department of Greography, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany<br>Magdalena Mittermeier

AuthorsLaura Suarez-GutierrezView author publications<br>Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Urs BeyerleView author publications<br>Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Magdalena MittermeierView author publications<br>Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Robert VautardView author publications<br>Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Erich M. FischerView author publications<br>Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author<br>Correspondence to<br>Laura Suarez-Gutierrez.

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Supplementary information to: Worst-case European heat storylines generated using Ensemble Boosting (download PDF )

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