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Extreme events
During the course of climate change, it is not just a change in average climate that is expected, but also an increase in various extreme natural and weather events. Such extreme events often have devastating consequences for people and the environment, and cause heavy financial losses.
- Flooding in the Matte district of Bern in August 2005 (www.matte.ch).
Individual extreme events cannot be clearly linked to climate change. Climate change does, however, result in changes to frequency and intensity of such events. In the past few years an impressive clustering of natural disasters has been observed. The following changes in extreme events are expected in Europe as a result of climate change:
- Heat waves: In Southern and Central Europe, more frequent heat waves that are hotter and last longer are expected. Climate scenarios predict that heat waves like those of summer 2003 could occur every second summer by the end of the 21st century.
- Droughts: In conjunction with heat waves, more frequent summer droughts are also expected.
- Heavy rainfall: During the 20th century, an increase in heavy winter rainfall has been observed throughout Switzerland. Central European climate scenarios predict an increase in the frequency of extreme winter rainfall by a factor of 2-5.
- Floods: Because heavy winter precipitation is increasingly falling in the form of rain rather than snow, an increase in flooding in the Alpine region is expected.
- Winter storms: Most climate models predict more frequent intensive winter storms for Europe, which could cause extensive damage to large areas. These predictions are comparatively uncertain.
- Temperature anomaly during the 2003 heat wave (Reto Stöckli, NASA).
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