scholarly journals Assessments of Mediterranean precipitation changes for the 21st century using statistical downscaling techniques

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (8) ◽  
pp. 1025-1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Hertig ◽  
J. Jacobeit
Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 195
Author(s):  
Muhammad Saleem Pomee ◽  
Elke Hertig

We assessed maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperatures over Pakistan’s Indus basin during the 21st century using statistical downscaling. A particular focus was given to spatiotemporal heterogeneity, reference and General Circulation Model (GCM) uncertainties, and statistical skills of regression models using an observational profile that could significantly be improved by recent high-altitude observatories. First, we characterized the basin into homogeneous climate regions using K-means clustering. Predictors from ERA-Interim reanalysis were then used to model observed temperatures skillfully and quantify reference and GCM uncertainties. Thermodynamical (dynamical) variables mainly governed reference (GCM) uncertainties. The GCM predictors under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios were used as “new” predictors in statistical models to project ensemble temperature changes. Our analysis projected non-uniform warming but could not validate elevation-dependent warming (EDW) at the basin scale. We obtained more significant warming during the westerly-dominated seasons, with maximum heating during the winter season through Tmin changes. The most striking feature is a low-warming monsoon (with the possibility of no change to slight cooling) over the Upper Indus Basin (UIB). Therefore, the likelihood of continuing the anomalous UIB behavior during the primary melt season may not entirely be ruled out at the end of the 21st century under RCP8.5.


Science ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 357 (6349) ◽  
pp. 405-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Sinha ◽  
A. M. Michalak ◽  
V. Balaji

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 2671-2686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Els Van Uytven ◽  
Jan De Niel ◽  
Patrick Willems

Abstract. In recent years many methods for statistical downscaling of the precipitation climate model outputs have been developed. Statistical downscaling is performed under general and method-specific (structural) assumptions but those are rarely evaluated simultaneously. This paper illustrates the verification and evaluation of the downscaling assumptions for a weather typing method. Using the observations and outputs of a global climate model ensemble, the skill of the method is evaluated for precipitation downscaling in central Belgium during the winter season (December to February). Shortcomings of the studied method have been uncovered and are identified as biases and a time-variant predictor–predictand relationship. The predictor–predictand relationship is found to be informative for historical observations but becomes inaccurate for the projected climate model output. The latter inaccuracy is explained by the increased importance of the thermodynamic processes in the precipitation changes. The results therefore question the applicability of the weather typing method for the case study location. Besides the shortcomings, the results also demonstrate the added value of the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship for precipitation amount scaling. The verification and evaluation of the downscaling assumptions are a tool to design a statistical downscaling ensemble tailored to end-user needs.


Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 688
Author(s):  
Ren Xu ◽  
Yumin Chen ◽  
Zeqiang Chen

After the release of the high-resolution downscaled National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP) dataset, it is worth exploiting this dataset to improve the simulation and projection of local precipitation. This study developed support vector regression (SVR) and quantile mapping (SVR_QM) ensemble and correction models on the basis of historic precipitation in the Han River basin and the 21 NEX-GDDP models. The generated SVR_QM models were applied to project changes of precipitation during the 21st century for the region. Several statistical metrics, including Pearson’s correlation coefficient (PCC), root mean squared error (RMSE), and relative bias (Rbias), were used for evaluation and comparative analyses. The results demonstrated the superior performance of SVR_QM compared with multi-layer perceptron (MLP), SVR, and random forest (RF), as well as simple model average (MME) ensemble methods and single NEX-GDDP models. PCC was up to 0.84 from 0.61–0.71 for the single NEX-GDDP models, RMSE was up to 34.02 mm from 48–51 mm, and Rbias values were almost removed. Additionally, the projected precipitation changes during the 21st century in most stations had an increasing trend under both Representative Concentration Pathway RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emissions scenarios; the regional average precipitation during the middle (2040–2059) and late (2070–2089) 21st century increased by 3.54% and 5.12% under RCP4.5 and by 7.44% and 9.52% under RCP8.5, respectively.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1411-1432 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Quintana-Seguí ◽  
F. Habets ◽  
E. Martin

Abstract. The extremes of precipitation and river flow obtained using three different statistical downscaling methods applied to the same regional climate simulation have been compared. The methods compared are the anomaly method, quantile mapping and a weather typing. The hydrological model used in the study is distributed and it is applied to the Mediterranean basins of France. The study shows that both quantile mapping and weather typing methods are able to reproduce the high and low precipitation extremes in the region of interest. The study also shows that when the hydrological model is forced with these downscaled data, there are important differences in the outputs. This shows that the model amplifies the differences and that the downscaling of other atmospheric variables might be very relevant when simulating river discharges. In terms of river flow, the method of the anomalies, which is very simple, performs better than expected. The methods produce qualitatively similar future scenarios of the extremes of river flow. However, quantitatively, there are still significant differences between them for each individual gauging station. According to these scenarios, it is expected that in the middle of the 21st century (2035–2064), the monthly low flows will have diminished almost everywhere in the region of our study by as much as 20 %. Regarding high flows, there will be important increases in the area of the Cévennes, which is already seriously affected by flash-floods. For some gauging stations in this area, the frequency of what was a 10-yr return flood at the end of the 20th century is expected to increase, with such return floods then occurring every two years in the middle of the 21st century. Similarly, the 10-yr return floods at that time are expected to carry 100 % more water than the 10-yr return floods experienced at the end of the 20th century. In the northern part of the Rhône basin, these extremes will be reduced.


2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (52) ◽  
pp. 27-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Surendra Adhikari ◽  
Philippe Huybrechts

AbstractDue to the lack of measurements of ice velocity, mass balance, glacier geometry and other baseline data, model-based studies of glacial systems in the Nepal Himalaya are very limited. Here a numerical ice-flow model has been developed for glacier AX010 in order to study its relation to local climate and investigate the possible causes of its general retreat since the end of the Little Ice Age. First, an attempt is made to simulate the historical front variations, considering each climatic parameter separately. Good agreement between the observations and model projections can be obtained under the assumption that variations in glacier front position are a response to changes in temperature alone. The same assumption is made about future changes to explore the 21st-century evolution of the glacier. Under a no-change scenario, the glacier will retreat by another ∽600m by AD 2100, whereas it is projected to vanish completely during this century for all trends with a temperature rise larger than +2.5˚C by AD 2100 with respect to the 1980–99 mean. With constant precipitation at the 1980–99 mean, the model predicts that the glacier will cease to exist at AD 2083, 2056 or 2049 if the temperature rises linearly by 3˚C, 4.5˚C or 6˚C respectively by the end of this century. With an additional range of precipitation changes between –30% and +30%, the life expectancy of glacier AX010 varies by 18, 6 and 2 years for the respective temperature rises. Thus the role of precipitation becomes minimal for the higher trends of temperature rise.


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