User tailored results of a regional climate model ensemble to plan adaption to the changing climate in Germany

Abstract

In the German regional climate modeling project ReKliEs-De the existing EURO-CORDEX simulations have been systematically complemented by new simulations to derive more robust ranges of possible future climate change. The focus of the project lay on user tailored results, which are required for the planning of measures to adapt to the changing climate. Changes in temperature and precipitation indices are calculated from a multi model ensemble for the end of the 21st century. The results for the mitigation scenario RCP2.6 are compared to the results of the “business as usual” scenario RCP8.5. Averaged over Germany the increase of mean annual temperature and of the number of summer days will be around 3 times higher for RCP8.5 than for RCP2.6. In summer, the increase of dry days could be twice as high in RCP8.5 compared to RCP2.6.