Compound extreme event attribution: hot and dry events in Belgium

Compound weather and climate events refer to combinations of multiple weather and climate rivers and/or hazards that lead to potentially large impacts. Not only will single extreme events become more frequent in the future, but there will also be a higher likelihood of high-impact compound events. Extreme events are more likely to occur simultaneously, leading to increased damage and impact on the territory. Extreme Event Attribution (EEA) is an emerging field in climate sciences. One of the goals is to describe whether and how the probability of an event depends on climate change. Extreme event attribution typically focuses on univariate assessments, often leading to an underestimation of the risks and actual damages attributable to climate change.

While compound weather and climate events can result in significant socioeconomic consequences, their attributability to climate change remains largely unexplored. Here, we present a compound event attribution study assessing the change in probability of having co-occurrent hot and dry events in Belgium with and without climate change.