Day Summary

This day introduced students to the mathematical framework used by researchers to study extreme events and their variability: Extreme Value Theory (EVT). We started by presenting the “climate” as distribution of probabilities that a certain value of a climate variable is observed. The Generalised Extreme Value (GEV) distribution provided an effective model to describe the statistical behavior of extreme climatic events. By fitting observational data to a GEV distribution you computed the return periods associated with extreme events. To account for changes in the distribution parameters — as a result of climate change — we explained how to incorporate non-stationarity concepts in our models. We closed with a consideration of the importance of thresholds.