Drivers of extreme events at the regional scale: Investigations with regional climate simulations and observations [INVITED]

Climate change is not only expected to affect the mean of climatic variables, but also their variability and the occurrence of related extreme events such as heat waves, droughts and heavy precipitation events. Main drivers for these changes are changes in circulation patterns and land-atmosphere interactions. This presentation will provide an overview on recent investigations disentangling the respective role of these drivers for past and projected changes in extreme events. In particular we will detail how climate regimes, land cover types, soil parameters, and soil moisture memory modulate the persistence and intensity of heat waves, based both on regional climate model simulations and observational data. Areas of potential improvement in current regional and global climate models will be highlighted.