Climate Change and Modelling of Extreme Temperatures in Switzerland

Abstract

This study models maximum temperatures in Switzerland monitored in twelve locations using the generalised extreme value (GEV) distribution. The parameters of the GEV distribution are determined within a Bayesian framework. We find that the parameters of the underlying distribution underwent a substantial change in the beginning of the 1980s. This change is characterised by an increase both in the level and the variability. We assess the likelihood of the heat wave of the summer 2003 using the fitted GEV distribution by accounting for the presence of a structural break. The estimation results do suggest that the heat wave of 2003 is not that statistically improbable if an appropriate methodology is used for dealing with nonstationarity.