Projections of extreme rainfall and floods in Mediterranean basins from an ensemble of convection-permitting models

Nils Poncet (), Yves Tramblay (), Philippe Lucas-Picher (), Guillaume Thirel () and Cécile Caillaud ()
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Nils Poncet: Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM), Université de Toulouse, Météo-France, CNRS
Yves Tramblay: Espace-Dev, University Montpellier, IRD, University Guyane, University Reunion, University Antilles, University Avignon, University Perpignan, University Nouvelle Calédonie
Philippe Lucas-Picher: Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM), Université de Toulouse, Météo-France, CNRS
Guillaume Thirel: Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM), Université de Toulouse, Météo-France, CNRS
Cécile Caillaud: Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM), Université de Toulouse, Météo-France, CNRS

Climatic Change, 2025, vol. 178, issue 8, No 1, 26 pages

Abstract: Abstract Floods have major impacts on the Mediterranean region, but little is currently known about their potential evolution in the context of climate change. This is due in particular to the limited ability of climate models to reproduce extreme meteorological events such as heavy rains that lead to flash floods, especially at the local scale over smaller basins. This study is the first to explore future flood scenarios over 12 Mediterranean basins using an ensemble of 12 high-resolution convection-permitting climate models and the GR5H hourly rainfall-runoff model. The results indicate an overall increase in flood intensity across all basins, particularly for the most severe events, but also a strong spatial variability in the change signal depending on the geographic location. There is good agreement among the convection-permitting climate models on an increase in hourly and daily rainfall extremes in the Mediterranean, but these changes are not strongly correlated with changes in flood-peak intensity, indicating that change in rainfall intensity alone is a poor predictor of future flood hazards. At present, this type of analysis is hampered by the short duration of the available high-resolution climate simulations. Longer timeseries would be required to better assess the robustness of the projected changes against climate variability.

Keywords: Climate change; Floods; The Mediterranean; Convection-permitting model; Ensemble; Projection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10584-025-03983-8

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