Extreme events are among the most impact-relevant consequences of a warmer climate. These events, particularly precipitation-related extremes, have significantly increased (globally) in frequency and intensity under climate change, causing more water-related disasters such as droughts, floods, and even landslides and debris flows in mountainous areas. We use different regional and Earth system models as well as simulated climate datasets (e.g., CORDEX, CMIP6) to investigate the potential impacts of climate change on the frequency and intensity of extremes and further understand how large-scale tropospheric circulations and local land-surface conditions would contribute to the development of extreme events.

Understanding climate change from a continental and global perspective is important, but impacts are felt and decisions are made on regional and subregional scales. A major focus of our group is to understand climate change on the regional scale and provide scientific information that is relevant to climate adaptation questions.