Abstract. This paper complements a series of now four publications that document the release of the Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool) v2.0. It describes new diagnostics on the hydrological cycle, extreme events, impact assessment, regional evaluations, and ensemble member selection. The diagnostics are developed by a large community of scientists aiming to facilitate the evaluation and comparison of Earth system models (ESMs) which are participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). The second release of this tool aims to support the evaluation of ESMs participating in CMIP Phase 6 (CMIP6). Furthermore, datasets from other models and observations can be analysed. The diagnostics for the hydrological cycle include several precipitation and drought indices, as well as hydroclimatic intensity and indices from the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). The latter are also used for identification of extreme events, for impact assessment, and to project and characterize the risks and impacts of climate change for natural and socio-economic systems. Further impact assessment diagnostics are included to compute daily temperature ranges and capacity factors for wind and solar energy generation. Regional scales can be analysed with new diagnostics implemented for selected regions and stochastic downscaling. ESMValTool v2.0 also includes diagnostics to analyse large multi-model ensembles including grouping and selecting ensemble members by user-specified criteria. Here, we present examples for their capabilities based on the well-established CMIP Phase 5 (CMIP5) dataset.

Tourism is a major socioeconomic contributor to established and emerging destinations in the Mediterranean region. Recent studies introducing the Holiday Climate Index (HCI) highlight the significance of climate as a factor in sustaining the competitiveness of coastal and urban destinations. The aim of this study is to assess the future HCI performance of urban and beach destinations in the greater Mediterranean region. For this purpose, HCI scores for the reference (1971–2000) and future (2021–2050, 2070–2099) periods were computed with the use of two latest greenhouse gas concentration trajectories, RCP 4.5 and 8.5, based on the Middle East North Africa (MENA) Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) domain and data. The outputs were adjusted to a 500 m resolution via the use of lapse rate corrections that extrapolate the climate model topography against a resampled digital elevation model. All periodic results were seasonally aggregated and visualized on a (web) geographical information system (GIS). The web version of the GIS also allowed for a basic climate service where any user can search her/his place of interest overlaid with index ratings. Exposure levels are revealed at the macro scale while sensitivity is discussed through a validation of the climatic outputs against visitation data for one of Mediterranean’s leading destinations, Antalya.

Abstract. This paper complements a series of now four publications that document the release of the Earth System Model Evaluation Tool (ESMValTool) v2.0. It describes new diagnostics on the hydrological cycle, extreme events, impact assessment, regional evaluations, and ensemble member selection. The diagnostics are developed by a large community of scientists aiming to facilitate the evaluation and comparison of Earth System Models (ESMs) which are participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). The second release of this tool aims to support the evaluation of ESMs participating in CMIP Phase 6 (CMIP6). Furthermore, data sets from other models and observations can be analysed. The diagnostics for the hydrological cycle include several precipitation and drought indices, as well as hydroclimatic intensity and indices from the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). The latter are also used for identification of extreme events and for impact assessment, and to project and characterize the risks and impacts of climate change for natural and socio-economic systems. Further impact assessment diagnostics are included to compute daily temperature ranges and capacity factors for wind and solar energy generation. Regional scales can be analysed with new diagnostics implemented for selected regions and stochastic downscaling. ESMValTool v2.0 also includes diagnostics to analyse large multi-model ensembles including grouping and selecting ensemble members by user specified criteria. Here, we present examples for their capabilities based on the well-established CMIP Phase 5 (CMIP5) data set.

<p>Tourism is a major socioeconomic contributor to established and emerging destinations in the Mediterranean region. Recent studies introducing the Holiday Climate Index (HCI) highlight the significance of climate as a factor in sustaining the competitiveness of coastal and urban destinations. The aim of this study is to assess the future HCI performances of urban and beach destinations in the greater Mediterranean region. For this purpose, HCI scores for the reference (1971-2000) and future (2021-2050, 2070-2099) periods were computed with the use of two latest greenhouse gas concentration trajectories, RCP 4.5 and 8.5, based on the Middle East North Africa (MENA) Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) domain and data. The outputs were adjusted to a 500 m resolution via the use of lapse rate corrections that extrapolate the climate model topography against a resampled digital elevation model. All periodic results were seasonally aggregated and visualized on a (web) geographical information system (GIS). The web version of the GIS also allowed for a basic climate service where any user can search her/his place of interest overlaid with index ratings. Exposure levels are revealed at the macro scale while sensitivity is discussed through a validation of the climatic outputs against visitation data for one of Mediterranean's leading destinations, Antalya. HCI:Urban results showed that Canary Islands hold suitable conditions for tourism during almost all four seasons and all five periods which will have certain implications when other core Mediterranean competitors lose their relative climatic attractiveness. HCI:Beach results for the summer season showed that Las Canteras, Alicate, Pampelonne, Myrtos, Golden Sands and Edremit all pose Very Good to Excellent conditions without any Humidex risks for the extreme future scenario (2070-2099 RCP8.5). <br>Much detailed outputs of the study can be viewed from the web service at: <br>http://climatechange.boun.edu.tr/en/holiday-climatology-of-the-mediterranean/</p><p>.</p>

<p>Extreme events are rare atmospheric phenomena that cause significant damage to humans and natural systems, but detecting extreme events in the future in a changing climate can be challenging. Traditionally, temperature distributions were assumed to follow a normal distribution and certain thresholds were used to define extreme events. However, the mean and the variance of temperatures are expected to change in a future climate, which might limit the application of traditional methods for detecting extreme events.</p> <p>We found that daily maximum surface temperature data can be described accurately using a multimodal distribution. In this study, we therefore used a statistical method called Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) to fit a multimodal distribution to daily near-surface maximum air temperature data from simulations participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) for 46 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) land regions. GMM allowed us to use the parameters from the Gaussian distribution fitted to the higher temperatures to define the thresholds for the return period of extreme events. We analysed the change in the return periods of extreme temperature events in study regions compared to the historical period (1980-2010) under future Global Warming Levels (GWL) of 1.5°C, 2°C, 3°C and 4°C for each Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) scenarios. </p>