Project description

Both in Sweden and international in recent years, on a number of occasions, we have seen natural disasters caused by extreme rainfall. In Sweden the flooding in Arvika, the torrential rain over the islands of Orust and Tjörn, and the landslides in the Hagfors region, have all displayed the consequences that these kinds of natural disasters have for people, the environment, and the community as a whole.

Since an increased number of climate model studies indicate that rising contents of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will probably lead to more severe weather conditions in the future, it is of great importance to increase our understanding regarding the occurrence of climate extremes recent and remote past. Within the project one important task was to study various statistical properties of precipitation in Sweden during the period 1961-2004 with emphasis on the past change in extreme rainfall events. Another task was to estimate the future risk for rainfall extremes taking climate change into account.