Future changes in European severe convection environments in a regional climate model ensemble

These conditions included the collocated presence of latent instability and strong deep-layer (surface to 500 hPa) wind shear, which is conducive to the severe andwell-organized convective storms.

The occurrence of precipitation in the models was used as a proxy for convective initiation. Two climate scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) were investigated by comparing two future periods (2021-50 and 2071-2100) to a historical period (1971-2000) for each of these scenarios. The ensemble simulates a robust increase (change larger than twice the ensemble sample standard deviation) in the frequency of occurrence of unstable environments (lifted index = 15ms(-1)) deep-layer shear were found to be small and not robust, except across far northern Europe, where a decrease in shear is projected.