SMHI at HELIX final meeting

Last updated Oct 20, 2017

Published Oct 20, 2017

Researchers from the Rossby Centre were present at the final meeting of HELIX (High-End cLimate Impacts and eXtremes) FP7 project in Exeter in the beginning of October.

During its four years of duration HELIX assisted decision-makers and the research community in making adaptation to our changing climate more understandable and manageable by providing a set of credible, coherent, global and regional views of different worlds at 1.5, 2, 4 and 6°C. HELIX further focused on delivering the knowledge needs of Northern Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Europe.

HELIX group photo — The project is led by Professor Richard Betts, University of Exeter (UK). HELIX brought together researchers from 10 EU countries, and also from Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Senegal.

SMHI lead HELIX WP3 on Provision of dynamically downscaled data for the SWL (specific warming levels) time slices over Europe. As a complement to the high-resolution AGCM simulations conducted with EC-Earth, SMHI also produced dynamically-downscaled data over Europe for a selected set of the CMIP5 projections supporting detailed regional impact assessment in subsequent HELIX work packages.

At HELIX’s final meeting Klaus Wyser presented an overview of the work carried out under WP3. A major outcome of WP3 is the better representation of extremes, in particular extreme precipitation, in the new high-resolution simulations that were done specifically for HELIX compared to the climate scenarios available from CMIP5.

Klaus W at HELIX final meeting — Klaus Wyser talking about the bias correction applied to EC-Earth simulated data.

Gustav Strandberg contributed to the scientific discussion with his latest work with Lars Bärring raising attention to the fact that is not just the specific warming level (SWL) that matters but also the path taken to get there. The choice of RCP scenario may affect the SWL climate, especially when it comes to extremes and impacts.

Gustav S at HELIX final meeting — Gustav Strandberg presenting his work on pathways to global warming targets.

SMHI is also contributing to HELIX’s Engagement and Communication, through the participation in meetings with stakeholders, key research users and decision makers to ensure that the research met their needs; and co-organization of early-career scientists communication training.

HELIX has partnered with artist Erica Nockalls who created a group of climate change related paintings. The paintings below portray two distinct possible futures of the Glastonbury Festival, Britain’s largest and most famous music festival.

Also included in the 3-day project meeting, in the event “Can we live with a warming planet” a panel of HELIX’s scientists and stakeholders presented the projects main findings and discussed what they could mean for our future. The event drew the attention of the local community with around 400 people attending.