The ClimEx project investigates the effects of climate change on meteorological and hydrological extreme events and implications for water management in Bavaria and Québec. It especially consists of two new aspects:
An ensemble of 50 transient runs of the canadian general circulation model CanESM2 (~200km resolution) from 1950 to 2100, resulting in 7500 years of modelled climate. As each of these runs is initialized with only slightly altered starting conditions, this ensemble can be interpreted as (modelled) natural variability. The CanESM2 then drives the regional climate model CRCM5 (~11km resolution) for a domain that covers most of central Europe. Both models are internationally established and widely used in the climate science community.
A physically based hydrological model (WaSiM) is driven by this climate input for the entire hydrological Bavaria at very high temporal and spatial resolution of 3 hours and 500m to investigate both climate change impacts and natural variability of extreme events, especially floods.
ClimEx further strengthens the international collaboration between Bavaria and Québec as research facilities, universities and public water agencies intensify their former cooperation approaches.