Large-scale dynamics moderate impact-relevant changes to organised convective storms

Here we assess end-of-century changes to their characteristics in two convection-permitting climate simulations from the UK Met Office and ETH-Zurich that both use the high Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario but different approaches to represent atmospheric changes with global warming and different models.

The UK Met Office projections indicate more frequent, smaller, and slower-moving storms, while ETH-Zurich projections show fewer, larger, and faster-moving storms. However, both simulations show increases to peak precipitation intensity, total precipitation volume, and temporal clustering, suggesting increasing risks from mesoscale-convective systems in the future. Importantly, the largest storms that pose increased flood risks are projected to increase in frequency and intensity.