TEMPEST: Testing and Evaluating Model Predictions of European Storms

Intense extratropical cyclones are one of the major weather risks in the mid-latitudes. High winds and extreme precipitation from extratropical cyclones can result in windstorm damage, flooding and coastal storm surge. Understanding the impacts of climate change on extratropical cyclones is critical to assessing future weather risk. TEMPEST is a 3-year proposed programme of research addressing the climate science deliverable of the NERC Storm Risk Mitigation directed programme. The climate deliverable is to provide an improved understanding of how climate change and natural variability will affect the generation and evolution of extra-tropical cyclones. TEMPEST will achieve this improved understanding by addressing the scientific questions raised in the Storm Risk Mitigation climate deliverable. TEMPEST aims to address these questions by, Providing the first systematic assessment of how intense extratropical cyclones are predicted to change in the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) climate models Performing an integrated set of sensitivity experiments with the Met Office Unified Model to quantify the key processes that determine the spread of climate model predictions Investigating the response of intense extratropical cyclones to climate change in very high-resolution global atmospheric model experiments capable of capturing mesoscale structures. The focus in TEMPEST is on intense extratropical cyclones that affect Europe. This is partly due to the socioeconomic impacts of such storms, but is also partly driven by the scientific need to address the particularly large spread in climate model predictions for extratropical cyclone activity over the North Atlantic and Europe. It is envisaged that the outcomes from TEMPEST will feed directly into the forthcoming IPCC assessment report (AR5). TEMPEST will also have strong synergies with other LWEC (Living With Environmental Change) programmes, most notably the JWCRP (Joint Met Office/NERC Weather and Climate Research Programme) and the CWC (Changing Water Cycle) research programme. The questions posed by the Storm Risk Mitigation climate deliverable cut across the traditional boundaries of weather and climate modelling communities. To tackle these questions, we aim to bring together scientists from the climate, weather and statistical communities at the Universities of Exeter, Oxford and Reading, the Met Office and ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). By engaging the wider community within TEMPEST, we will enable the development of links with the Impacts and Numerical Weather Prediction projects in the Storm Risk Mitigation programme.