Statistics of Temperature Extremes and Implications for Electrical Power Infrastructure in Continental France

Abstract

In this article, we present extreme value statistics of temperature extremes over continental France with a focus on their implications for electrical power infrastructure. These are obtained by fitting a non-stationary generalised extreme value distribution using a Bayesian setup, which also provides errors or uncertainty values for all estimates. Within this method, a combination of simulated data from a collection of 28 CMIP6 models and measured records from the E-OBS dataset is used. The investigated climate scenarios are SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5, considering both historical and future climates spanning the years from 1850 to 2099. The method provides full spatial resolution on a 0.25 degree grid, allowing to asses extreme temperatures at arbitrary locations. Leveraging this particular aspect, various maps revealing the spatial structure of annual maximum high temperature extremes over continental France for the median and the statistical upper bound are shown together with summary information for the administrative regions in France towards the end of the century. It is statistically possible that the south west region of Occitanie could reach temperatures of up to 57°C under a high emission scenario by 2080, which is the highest compared to all other regions in continental France. We also perform a comparison to the reference climate adaptation trajectory for France (TRACC - Trajectoire de réchauffement de Référence pour l'Adaptation au Changement Climatique), showing that it potentially underestimates the stated maximum temperatures which could be surpassed by up to +8°C. Furthermore, five reference electrical power infrastructure locations are investigated on how they are potentially affected by temperature extremes with the quantified intensities.

39 pages, 7 figures, submitted to journal: Weather and Climate Extremes