Most of the nature‐related economic costs and human losses in many regions of Europe are due to extreme weather events such as heat waves, cold spells, persistent droughts, heavy precipitation and intense cyclonic wind‐storms. Extreme precipitation events are projected by climatic models to become more intense over the continent while droughts might last longer by the end of the century. In dry regions as Southern Europe, soils are predicted to dry out as temperatures and evapotranspiration rise and rain‐bearing atmospheric circulations become less frequent. Prospects on the future of climate indices linked to extreme phenomena are herein derived by using observed and model projected daily meteorological data. Specifically, E‐OBS high resolution gridded datasets of observed precipitation and surface minimum and maximum temperatures have been used as the regional observed baseline. For projections, the same meteorological variables have been obtained from a set of regional climate models integrated in the European EURO‐CORDEX project, considering the RCP8.5 future emissions scenario. A quantile–quantile adjustment has been applied to the simulated regional scenarios to reduce biases in modelled extreme regimes. Results suggest that warm days will substantially increase across Europe, consistently with a decrease of cold nights. An increase in heat wave amplitude is expected across the continent, with South Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean as the most affected regions. In contrast, Northern Europe will undergo the largest decrease in cold spell magnitude. An overall rise in the frequency and volume of heavy precipitations is projected in all seasons, even if the number of dry days is also expected to increase, except in the Baltic countries. Regarding abnormally long dry periods (extreme droughts), we find that the occurrence of episodes would reduce over Europe as consequence of projected increases in length.

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Projections of climate change impacts over Europe are derived using a new quantile–quantile adjustment method. E‐OBS high‐resolution gridded data sets of daily observed precipitation and 2‐m surface minimum and maximum temperatures have been used as the current climate baseline. For projections, the same meteorological variables have been obtained from a set of regional climate models (RCMs) integrated in the EURO‐CORDEX project, and by considering the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 future emissions scenarios. To enhance the reliability of RCM data at local scale, new developments of a previous quantile–quantile adjustment have been applied to the simulated regional scenarios. This method focuses not only on the bulk spectrum of the cumulative distribution functions but also on its tails. Results show an overall improvement in reproducing the present climate baseline when using calibrated series instead of raw RCM outputs. Next, we have used these locally adjusted series to quantify the climate change signal through a number of annual and seasonal indicators. A significant increase of the minimum and maximum temperatures in all seasons is projected over Europe, being more marked in the Mediterranean for summer and autumn. Prospects on future seasonal and annual changes in precipitation are more diverse, showing an overall decrease in southern Europe and the Mediterranean, while precipitation is expected to increase towards the north of the continent. With these sources of information at hand, including and accounting for the identification of the most vulnerable geographical areas, policy makers and stakeholders can respond more effectively to the future challenges imposed by climate change.

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<p>Europe and particularly, the Mediterranean countries, are among the most visited tourist destinations worldwide, while it is also recognized as one of the most sensitive regions to climate change. Climate is a key resource and even a limiting factor for many types of tourism. Owing to climate change, modified patterns of atmospheric variables such as temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, hours of sunshine and wind speed will likely affect the suitability of the European destinations for certain outdoor leisure activities.</p><p>Perspectives on the future of second-generation climate indices for tourism (CIT) that depend on thermal, aesthetic and physical facets are derived using model projected daily atmospheric data and present climate “observations”. Specifically, daily series of 2-m maximum temperature, accumulated precipitation, 2-m relative humidity, mean cloud cover and 10-m wind speed from ERA-5 reanalysis are used to derive the present climate potential. For projections, the same daily variables have been obtained from a set of regional climate models (RCMs) included in the European CORDEX project, considering the rcp8.5 future emissions scenario. The adoption of a multi-model ensemble strategy allows quantifying the uncertainties arising from the model errors and the GCM-derived boundary conditions. To properly derive CITs at local scale, a quantile–quantile adjustment has been applied to the simulated regional scenarios. The method detects changes in the continuous CIT cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) between the recent past and successive time slices of the simulated climate and applies these changes, once calibrated, to the observed CDFs. </p><p>Assessments on the future climate potential for several types of tourist activities in Europe (i.e., sun, sea and sand (3S) tourism, cycling, cultural, football, golf, nautical and hiking) will be presented by applying suitable quantitative indicators of CIT evolutions adapted to regional contexts. It is expected that such kind of information will ultimately benefit the design of mitigation and adaptation strategies of the tourist sector.</p>