Evolution of Mediterranean extreme dry spells during the wet season under climate change

Dry spells are natural hazards which have strong impacts on the environment and on many socioeconomic sectors. Their evolution in the Mediterranean Basin is a major issue because it is one of the most extreme hot spots of climate change world-wide. Very long dry spells are defined as climatic events characterized by their location, spatial extent, duration, and recurrence. This study investigates the evolution of these events during the wet season and for regional future climate projections of the Mediterranean and European Coordinated Downscaling Experiment initiatives (called Med-CORDEX and EURO-CORDEX). All simulations were performed with different regional climate models and various climate change scenarios. Main results are (i) an increase in the number of very long dry spells (between + 3 and + 31 events) and (ii) an increase of their mean duration and spatial extent. This increase in the severity of very long dry spells may have strong socioeconomic impacts in particular for the most vulnerable areas.