How can we implement good uncertainty in climate projections? A contribution to a climate stress-test for the transnational Meuse basin.

peer reviewedPast analysis of climate variability is useful to maximize the good uncertainty when producing future climate projections. This paper presents the application of a simple method linking atmospheric circulation and surface climatic variables with the aim to extrapolate knowledge of climate in the past (until the Maunder minimum) and in the near future (21st century). This allows building a lot of plausible climatic scenarios, which form the basis of a climate “stress-test”. Its objective is to assess the hydrologic vulnerability of a catchment to the climate change. Calculated on the whole period of interest (1659-2100), monthly precipitation and temperature anomalies show that the knowledge of past climate has a high informative value, which is not enough taken into account in the climate change impact studies