eXtreme EuRopean drOughtS: multimodel synthesis of past, present and future events

有很多研究评估了最近欧洲干旱的严重程度。然而，这些研究大多是在20世纪后半叶水文气候条件的背景下评估干旱的。因此，最近的欧洲干旱事件可能比以前认为的更严重（或更严重）。XEROS项目的目的是（1）从长期（即500年）基准期的角度评估最近欧洲干旱事件的极端程度;（2）提高对干旱成因过程的认识。基础分析将采用水文变量的多模型重建，使用古气候重建的驱动数据。将使用目前最先进的水文/陆地表面模型来估计地表水和地下水部分的时空动态。这将有助于更好地了解大规模干旱事件的历史特征，并探索性地分析影响干旱成因的主导大气参数。更好地了解过去的不确定性将有助于更可靠地预测整个欧洲未来的水文气候条件。这将通过限制（未来）气候模型模拟的现有（过去）的观测为基础的重建水文气候变量。XEROS项目建立在我们的团队最近在欧洲建立的建模基础设施之上。此外，该项目旨在汇集两个具有互补科学知识的研究小组：德国的申请人（UFZ）在理解和模拟陆地表面水文过程的复杂相互作用方面具有很强的专业知识，捷克的申请人（CULS）在水文和气候变化的统计分析方面具有很强的科学背景。

There are plenty of studies assessing the severity of recent European droughts. However, most of these studies evaluate the droughts within the context of hydroclimatic conditions of the second half of the 20th century. It is thus possible, that recent European drought events are less (or more) severe than previously thought. The XEROS project aims at (1) assessing the extremity of recent European drought events in the perspective of long (i.e. 500-year) benchmark period and (2) improving the process understanding of drought genesis. The underlying analysis will employ a multi-model reconstruction of hydrologic variables using the palaeoclimatic reconstructed driving data. Current state-of-the-art hydrologic/land surface models will be used to estimate spatio-temporal dynamics of the surface and subsurface water component. This will enable an improved understanding of historical characterisation of large scale drought events and exploratory analysis of the governing atmospheric parameters influencing the genesis of droughts. Better understanding of the uncertainties in the past will allow to project future hydroclimatic conditions across Europe more reliably. This will be achieved by constraining the (future) climate model simulations by the available (past) observation-based reconstructed hydroclimatic variables. The XEROS project builds upon a modelling infrastructure which has been recently established across Europe by our team. Additionally, this project aims to bring together two research groups of complementary scientific knowledge: the German-based applicants (UFZ) have strong expertise on understanding and modelling the complex interaction of land-surface hydrologic processes, and the Czech-based applicants (CULS) having strong scientific background in statistical analysis of hydrologic and climate variability.