Persistent heat extremes can have severe impacts on ecosystems and societies, including excess mortality, wildfires, and harvest failures. Here we identify Europe as a heatwave hotspot, exhibiting upward trends that are three-to-four times faster compared to the rest of the northern midlatitudes over the past 42 years. This accelerated trend is linked to atmospheric dynamical changes via an increase in the frequency and persistence of double jet stream states over Eurasia. We find that double jet occurrences are particularly important for western European heatwaves, explaining up to 35% of temperature variability. The upward trend in the persistence of double jet events explains almost all of the accelerated heatwave trend in western Europe, and about 30% of it over the extended European region. Those findings provide evidence that in addition to thermodynamical drivers, atmospheric dynamical changes have contributed to the increased rate of European heatwaves, with implications for risk management and potential adaptation strategies.

The summer of 2018 was an extraordinary season in climatological terms for northern and central Europe, bringing simultaneous, widespread, and concurrent heat and drought extremes in large parts of the continent with extensive impacts on agriculture, forests, water supply, and the socio-economic sector. Here, we present a comprehensive, multi-faceted analysis of the 2018 extreme summer in terms of heat and drought in central and northern Europe, with a particular focus on Germany. The heatwave first affected Scandinavia in mid-July and shifted towards central Europe in late July, while Iberia was primarily affected in early August. The atmospheric circulation was characterized by strongly positive blocking anomalies over Europe, in combination with a positive summer North Atlantic Oscillation and a double jet stream configuration before the initiation of the heatwave. In terms of possible precursors common to previous European heatwaves, the Eurasian double-jet structure and a tripolar sea surface temperature anomaly over the North Atlantic were already identified in spring. While in the early stages over Scandinavia the air masses at mid and upper levels were often of a remote, maritime origin, at later stages over Iberia the air masses primarily had a local-to-regional origin. The drought affected Germany the most, starting with warmer than average conditions in spring, associated with enhanced latent heat release that initiated a severe depletion of soil moisture. During summer, a continued precipitation deficit exacerbated the problem, leading to hydrological and agricultural drought. A probabilistic attribution assessment of the heatwave in Germany showed that such events of prolonged heat have become more likely due to anthropogenic global warming. Regarding future projections, an extreme summer such as that of 2018 is expected to occur every 2 out of 3 years in Europe in a +1.5 ^∘C warmer world and virtually every single year in a +2 ^∘C warmer world. With such large-scale and impactful extreme events becoming more frequent and intense under anthropogenic climate change, comprehensive and multi-faceted studies like the one presented here quantify the multitude of their effects and provide valuable information as a basis for adaptation and mitigation strategies.

Single‐model initial‐condition large ensembles are powerful tools to quantify the forced response, internal climate variability, and their evolution under global warming. Here, we present the CMIP6 version of the Max Planck Institute Grand Ensemble (MPI‐GE CMIP6) with currently 30 realizations for the historical period and five emission scenarios. The power of MPI‐GE CMIP6 goes beyond its predecessor ensemble MPI‐GE by providing high‐frequency output, the full range of emission scenarios including the highly policy‐relevant low emission scenarios SSP1‐1.9 and SSP1‐2.6, and the opportunity to compare the ensemble to complementary high‐resolution simulations. First, we describe MPI‐GE CMIP6, evaluate it with observations and reanalyzes and compare it to MPI‐GE. Then, we demonstrate with six application examples how to use the power of the ensemble to better quantify and understand present and future climate extremes, to inform about uncertainty in approaching Paris Agreement global warming limits, and to combine large ensembles and artificial intelligence. For instance, MPI‐GE CMIP6 allows us to show that the recently observed Siberian and Pacific North American heatwaves would only avoid reaching 1–2 years return periods in 2071–2100 with low emission scenarios, that recently observed European precipitation extremes are captured only by complementary high‐resolution simulations, and that 3‐hourly output projects a decreasing activity of storms in mid‐latitude oceans. Further, the ensemble is ideal for estimates of probabilities of crossing global warming limits and the irreducible uncertainty introduced by internal variability, and is sufficiently large to be used for infilling surface temperature observations with artificial intelligence.

Different spring and early summer North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) have been shown to precede recent European summer heatwaves (EuSHWs). So far, the limited number of observed events associated with several physical mechanisms has prevented a robust identification of SSTAs as precursors. Here, we extend beyond previous studies by combining 100 historical simulations (1850–2005) of the MPI Grand‐Ensemble with an explainable neural‐network method. We find that the spring tripolar North Atlantic pattern with positive SSTAs in the Subtropical Gyre is a precursor of EuSHWs. In addition, positive SSTAs west of the Iberian Peninsula, and in the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean Sea relate to distinct early summer soil moisture anomaly patterns and are precursors of western and southeastern EuSHWs, respectively. While the phase of the tripolar North Atlantic pattern indicates whether a EuSHW might emerge, regional SSTAs indicate the spatial characteristics of EuSHWs.

In recent years, European summer heatwaves have strongly intensified due to rising anthropogenic emissions. While European summer heatwaves will continue to intensify due to the warming of summer temperatures, the effects of the changes in internal variability under global warming remain unknown. Employing five single-model initial-condition large ensembles, we find that the forced changes in internal variability are projected to intensify central and northern European summer heatwaves. Central and northern Europe will experience frequent moisture limitations, enhancing land-atmosphere feedback and increasing heatwave intensity and variability. In contrast, the forced changes in internal variability will contribute to weakening southern European summer heatwaves. Southern Europe is projected to face a more stable moisture-depleted environment that reduces extreme temperature variability and heatwave intensity. Our findings imply that while adaptation to increasing mean temperatures in southern Europe should suffice to reduce the vulnerability to increasing EuSHW intensity, in central and northern Europe adaptation to increased temperature variability will also be needed.

Responses of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) to global warming remain uncertain, which challenges ENSO forecasts in a warming climate. We investigate changes in ENSO characteristics and predictability in idealized simulations with quadrupled CO₂ forcing from seven general circulation models. Comparing the warmer climate to control simulations, ENSO variability weakens, with the neutral state lasting longer, while active ENSO states last shorter and skew to favor the La Niña state. The 6-month persistence-assessed ENSO predictability slightly reduces in five models and increases in two models under the warming condition. While the overall changes in ENSO predictability are insignificant, we find significant relationships between changes in predictability and intensity, duration, and skewness of the three individual ENSO states. The maximal contribution to changes in the predictability of El Niño, La Niña and neutral states stems from changes in skewness and events' duration. Our findings show that a robust and significant decrease in ENSO characteristics does not imply a similar change in ENSO predictability in a warmer climate. This could be due to model deficiencies in ENSO dynamics and limitations in the persistence model when predicting ENSO.