Assessing the impact of hail on wheat production in Europe under climate change

Hailstorms have shown rising severity and frequency in recent years, posing a growing threat to crops and presenting significant challenges for the agricultural and insurance sectors in the face of climate change. As part of an interdisciplinary project (scCLIM, Seamless coupling of kilometer-resolution weather predictions and climate simulations with hail impact assessments for multiple sectors), this study focuses on assessing the impact of future hail occurrence on wheat across Europe.

We utilize results from high-resolution climate simulations with a grid spacing of 2.2 km, which were conducted using the COSMO regional climate model for both current and future climate. The future climate simulation, targeting a 3°C global warming scenario, was performed using the pseudo-global warming approach. Hail activity was simulated using the hail growth model HAILCAST, which was embedded within COSMO. A model of wheat phenology was used to estimate the wheat harvest dates based on COSMO outputs, enabling an assessment of the present and future exposure of wheat to hail.  By integrating high-resolution climate simulations with a crop phenology model, this approach bridges the gap between agricultural production and climate risks associated with extreme events. 

In this contribution, we examine the temporal and spatial alignment between hail events and crop development, with a particular focus on assessing the sensitivity of future risk of hail damage to wheat with respect to the interplay between changes in hail occurrence and earlier harvest dates. The results reveal regional variations in hail impacts on wheat across Europe, offering valuable insights into crop management, climate change adaptation strategies, and risk assessment within the insurance sector.