Post-event assessment of extreme events within an evaluation system framework

The ClimXtreme program[1,2], funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, consists of 25 subprojects investigating extreme events in central Europe focussing on heat/drought, extreme precipitation and wind storms. Extreme events occurring during project runtime are assessed within the research program by forming a post-event assessment group (PostAG). This group aims at rapid response using both pre-defined methods and workflows as well as cutting edge methods of the research program.

The basis for the assessment is the evaluation framework Freva (Free Evaluation System Framework)[3,4] which provides an efficient possibility to handle customisable evaluation systems of large research projects. Several projects and institutions are already using this framework for educational or research purposes. Among them is worthy to mention the  Freva instance hosted at the German weather service (DWD) which allows an exchange of methods and assessment workflows between research projects and the DWD. The Freva instance of ClimXtreme[5], hosted at DKRZ, enables the possibility to access more than 10 million data files from models (e.g. CMIP, CORDEX) and observations (e.g. ERA5, HYRAS, stations). Near-realtime data of observations are operationally updated for the PostAG assessment.

This contribution shows an interplay of the evaluation framework and scripted workflows to rapidly assess extreme events directly after their occurrence with pre-defined methods (e.g. plugins) providing the option to easily expand the analysis by new methodologies developed by the research program.

References:

[1] https://www.fona.de/de/massnahmen/foerdermassnahmen/climxtreme.php
[2] https://www.climxtreme.de/
[3] http://doi.org/10.5334/jors.253
[4] https://github.com/FREVA-CLINT/freva
[5] https://www.xces.dkrz.de/