Mapping climate change in European temperature distributions

Stainforth, David A.; Chapman, Sandra C.; Watkins, Nicholas W.. 2013 Mapping climate change in European temperature distributions. Environmental Research Letters, 8 (3). 9, pp. 10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034031

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Abstract/Summary

Climate change poses challenges for decision makers across society, not just in preparing for the climate of the future but even when planning for the climate of the present day. When making climate sensitive decisions, policy makers and adaptation planners would benefit from information on local scales and for user-specific quantiles (e.g. the hottest/coldest 5% of days) and thresholds (e.g. days above 28 ° C), not just mean changes. Here, we translate observations of weather into observations of climate change, providing maps of the changing shape of climatic temperature distributions across Europe since 1950. The provision of such information from observations is valuable to support decisions designed to be robust in today's climate, while also providing data against which climate forecasting methods can be judged and interpreted. The general statement that the hottest summer days are warming faster than the coolest is made decision relevant by exposing how the regions of greatest warming are quantile and threshold dependent. In a band from Northern France to Denmark, where the response is greatest, the hottest days in the temperature distribution have seen changes of at least 2 ° C, over four times the global mean change over the same period. In winter the coldest nights are warming fastest, particularly in Scandinavia.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034031
Programmes:	BAS Programmes > Polar Science for Planet Earth (2009 - ) > Environmental Change and Evolution
ISSN:	1748-9326
Date made live:	26 Sep 2013 12:24 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/500443

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034031

Programmes:

BAS Programmes > Polar Science for Planet Earth (2009 - ) > Environmental Change and Evolution

ISSN:

1748-9326

Date made live:

26 Sep 2013 12:24 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/500443