Twenty-first century changes in daily temperature variability in CMIP3 climate models

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 1414-1428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jussi S. Ylhäisi ◽  
Jouni Räisänen
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (17) ◽  
pp. 6701-6722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bannister ◽  
Michael Herzog ◽  
Hans-F. Graf ◽  
J. Scott Hosking ◽  
C. Alan Short

The Sichuan basin is one of the most densely populated regions of China, making the area particularly vulnerable to the adverse impacts associated with future climate change. As such, climate models are important for understanding regional and local impacts of climate change and variability, like heat stress and drought. In this study, climate models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) are validated over the Sichuan basin by evaluating how well each model can capture the phase, amplitude, and variability of the regionally observed mean, maximum, and minimum temperature between 1979 and 2005. The results reveal that the majority of the models do not capture the basic spatial pattern and observed means, trends, and probability distribution functions. In particular, mean and minimum temperatures are underestimated, especially during the winter, resulting in biases exceeding −3°C. Models that reasonably represent the complex basin topography are found to generally have lower biases overall. The five most skillful climate models with respect to the regional climate of the Sichuan basin are selected to explore twenty-first-century temperature projections for the region. Under the CMIP5 high-emission future climate change scenario, representative concentration pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5), the temperatures are projected to increase by approximately 4°C (with an average warming rate of +0.72°C decade−1), with the greatest warming located over the central plains of the Sichuan basin, by 2100. Moreover, the frequency of extreme months (where mean temperature exceeds 28°C) is shown to increase in the twenty-first century at a faster rate compared to the twentieth century.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-48
Author(s):  
Daniel F. Schmidt ◽  
Kevin M. Grise

AbstractClimate change during the twenty-first century has the potential to substantially alter geographic patterns of precipitation. However, regional precipitation changes can be very difficult to project, and in some regions, global climate models do not even agree on the sign of the precipitation trend. Since some of this uncertainty is due to internal variability rather than model bias, models cannot be used to narrow the possibilities to a single outcome, but they can usefully quantify the range of plausible outcomes and identify the combination of dynamical drivers that would be likely to produce each.This study uses a storylines approach—a type of regression-based analysis—to identify some of the key dynamical drivers that explain the variance in 21st century U.S. winter precipitation trends across CMIP6 models under the SSP3-7.0 emissions scenario. This analysis shows that the spread in precipitation trends is not primarily driven by differences in modeled climate sensitivity. Key drivers include global-mean surface temperature, but also tropical upper-troposphere temperature, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Pacific-North America (PNA) pattern, and the East Pacific (EP) dipole (a dipole pattern in geopotential heights over North America’s Pacific coast). Combinations of these drivers can reinforce or cancel to produce various high- or low-impact scenarios for winter precipitation trends in various regions of the United States. For example, the most extreme winter precipitation trends in the southwestern U.S. result from opposite trends in ENSO and EP, whereas the wettest winter precipitation trends in the midwestern U.S. result from a combination of strong global warming and a negative PNA trend.


2020 ◽  
Vol 162 (3) ◽  
pp. 1473-1491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shakil Ahmad Romshoo ◽  
Jasia Bashir ◽  
Irfan Rashid

Author(s):  
M. G. Sanderson ◽  
D. L. Hemming ◽  
R. A. Betts

Climate models vary widely in their projections of both global mean temperature rise and regional climate changes, but are there any systematic differences in regional changes associated with different levels of global climate sensitivity? This paper examines model projections of climate change over the twenty-first century from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report which used the A2 scenario from the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, assessing whether different regional responses can be seen in models categorized as ‘high-end’ (those projecting 4 ° C or more by the end of the twenty-first century relative to the preindustrial). It also identifies regions where the largest climate changes are projected under high-end warming. The mean spatial patterns of change, normalized against the global rate of warming, are generally similar in high-end and ‘non-high-end’ simulations. The exception is the higher latitudes, where land areas warm relatively faster in boreal summer in high-end models, but sea ice areas show varying differences in boreal winter. Many continental interiors warm approximately twice as fast as the global average, with this being particularly accentuated in boreal summer, and the winter-time Arctic Ocean temperatures rise more than three times faster than the global average. Large temperature increases and precipitation decreases are projected in some of the regions that currently experience water resource pressures, including Mediterranean fringe regions, indicating enhanced pressure on water resources in these areas.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (21) ◽  
pp. 8055-8069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy E. LaRow ◽  
Lydia Stefanova ◽  
Chana Seitz

Abstract The effects on early and late twenty-first-century North Atlantic tropical cyclone statistics resulting from imposing the patterns of maximum/minimum phases of the observed Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) onto projected sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from two climate models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) are examined using a 100-km resolution global atmospheric model. By imposing the observed maximum positive and negative phases of the AMO onto two CMIP5 SST projections from the representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 scenario, this study places bounds on future North Atlantic tropical cyclone activity during the early (2020–39) and late (2080–99) twenty-first century. Averaging over both time periods and both AMO phases, the mean named tropical cyclones (NTCs) count increases by 35% when compared to simulations using observed SSTs from 1982 to 2009. The positive AMO simulations produce approximately a 68% increase in mean NTC count, while the negative AMO simulations are statistically indistinguishable from the mean NTC count determined from the 1995–2009 simulations—a period of observed positive AMO phase. Examination of the tropical cyclone track densities shows a statistically significant increase in the tracks along the East Coast of the United States in the future simulations compared to the models’ 1982–2009 climate simulations. The increase occurs regardless of AMO phase, although the negative phase produces higher track densities. The maximum wind speeds increase by 6%, in agreement with other climate change studies. Finally, the NTC-related precipitation is found to increase (approximately by 13%) compared to the 1982–2009 simulations.


Author(s):  
Emily Black ◽  
David J. Brayshaw ◽  
Claire M. C. Rambeau

Anthropogenic changes in precipitation pose a serious threat to society—particularly in regions such as the Middle East that already face serious water shortages. However, climate model projections of regional precipitation remain highly uncertain. Moreover, standard resolution climate models have particular difficulty representing precipitation in the Middle East, which is modulated by complex topography, inland water bodies and proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. Here we compare precipitation changes over the twenty-first century against both millennial variability during the Holocene and interannual variability in the present day. In order to assess the climate model and to make consistent comparisons, this study uses new regional climate model simulations of the past, present and future in conjunction with proxy and historical observations. We show that the pattern of precipitation change within Europe and the Middle East projected by the end of the twenty-first century has some similarities to that which occurred during the Holocene. In both cases, a poleward shift of the North Atlantic storm track and a weakening of the Mediterranean storm track appear to cause decreased winter rainfall in southern Europe and the Middle East and increased rainfall further north. In contrast, on an interannual time scale, anomalously dry seasons in the Middle East are associated with a strengthening and focusing of the storm track in the north Mediterranean and hence wet conditions throughout southern Europe.


2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (24) ◽  
pp. 6501-6514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott B. Power ◽  
Greg Kociuba

Abstract The Walker circulation (WC) is one of the world’s most prominent and important atmospheric systems. The WC weakened during the twentieth century, reaching record low levels in recent decades. This weakening is thought to be partly due to global warming and partly due to internally generated natural variability. There is, however, no consensus in the literature on the relative contribution of external forcing and natural variability to the observed weakening of the WC. This paper examines changes in the strength of the WC using an index called BoxΔP, which is equal to the difference in mean sea level pressure across the equatorial Pacific. Change in both the observations and in World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) climate models are examined. The annual average BoxΔP declines in the observations and in 15 out of 23 models during the twentieth century (results that are significant at or above the 95% level), consistent with earlier work. However, the magnitude of the multimodel ensemble mean (MMEM) 1901–99 trend (−0.10 Pa yr−1) is much smaller than the magnitude of the observed trend (−0.52 Pa yr−1). While a wide range of trends is evident in the models with approximately 90% of the model trends in the range (−0.25 to +0.1 Pa yr−1), even this range is too narrow to encompass the magnitude of the observed trend. Twenty-first-century changes in BoxΔP under the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B and A2 are also examined. Negative trends (i.e., weaker WCs) are evident in all seasons. However, the MMEM trends for the A1B and A2 scenarios are smaller in magnitude than the magnitude of the observed trend. Given that external forcing linked to greenhouse gases is much larger in the twenty-first-century scenarios than twentieth-century forcing, this, together with the twentieth-century results mentioned above, would seem to suggest that external forcing has not been the primary driver of the observed weakening of the WC. However, 9 of the 23 models are unable to account for the observed change unless the internally generated component of the trend is very large. But indicators of observed variability linked to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation have modest trends, suggesting that internally variability has been modest. Furthermore, many of the nine “inconsistent” models tend to have poorer simulations of climatic features linked to ENSO. In addition, the externally forced component of the trend tends to be larger in magnitude and more closely matches the observed trend in the models that are better able to reproduce ENSO-related variability. The “best” four models, for example, have a MMEM of −0.2 Pa yr−1 (i.e., approximately 40% of the observed change), suggesting a greater role for external forcing in driving the observed trend. These and other considerations outlined below lead the authors to conclude that (i) both external forcing and internally generated variability contributed to the observed weakening of the WC over the twentieth century and (ii) external forcing accounts for approximately 30%–70% of the observed weakening with internally generated climate variability making up the rest.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (32) ◽  
pp. e2103294118
Author(s):  
Maximilian Kotz ◽  
Leonie Wenz ◽  
Anders Levermann

Changes in mean climatic conditions will affect natural and societal systems profoundly under continued anthropogenic global warming. Changes in the high-frequency variability of temperature exert additional pressures, yet the effect of greenhouse forcing thereon has not been fully assessed or identified in observational data. Here, we show that the intramonthly variability of daily surface temperature changes with distinct global patterns as greenhouse gas concentrations rise. In both reanalyses of historical observations and state-of-the-art projections, variability increases at low to mid latitudes and decreases at northern mid to high latitudes with enhanced greenhouse forcing. These latitudinally polarized daily variability changes are identified from internal climate variability using a recently developed signal-to-noise-maximizing pattern-filtering technique. Analysis of a multimodel ensemble from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 shows that these changes are attributable to enhanced greenhouse forcing. By the end of the century under a business-as-usual emissions scenario, daily temperature variability would continue to increase by up to a further 100% at low latitudes and decrease by 40% at northern high latitudes. Alternative scenarios demonstrate that these changes would be limited by mitigation of greenhouse gases. Moreover, global changes in daily variability exhibit strong covariation with warming across climate models, suggesting that the equilibrium climate sensitivity will also play a role in determining the extent of future variability changes. This global response of the high-frequency climate system to enhanced greenhouse forcing is likely to have strong and unequal effects on societies, economies, and ecosystems if mitigation and protection measures are not taken.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 2853-2861 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Previdi ◽  
L. M. Polvani

Abstract. Stratospheric ozone recovery is expected to figure prominently in twenty-first century climate change. In a recent paper, Hu et al. (2011) argue that one impact of ozone recovery will be to enhance the warming of the surface-troposphere system produced by increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases; furthermore, this enhanced warming would be strongest in the Northern Hemisphere, which is surprising since previous studies have consistently shown the effects of stratospheric ozone changes to be most pronounced in the Southern Hemisphere. Hu et al. (2011) base their claims largely on differences in the simulated temperature change between two groups of IPCC climate models, one group which included stratospheric ozone recovery in its twenty-first century simulations and a second group which did not. Both groups of models were forced with the same increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases according to the A1B emissions scenario. In the current work, we compare the surface temperature responses of the same two groups of models in a different experiment in which atmospheric CO2 was increased by 1% per year until doubling. We find remarkably similar differences in the simulated surface temperature change between the two sets of models as Hu et al. (2011) found for the A1B experiment, suggesting that the enhanced warming which they attribute to stratospheric ozone recovery is actually a reflection of different responses of the two model groups to greenhouse gas forcing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-630
Author(s):  
Mansour Almazroui ◽  
M. Nazrul Islam ◽  
Sajjad Saeed ◽  
Fahad Saeed ◽  
Muhammad Ismail

AbstractThis paper presents the changes in projected temperature and precipitation over the Arabian Peninsula for the twenty-first century using the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) dataset. The changes are obtained by analyzing the multimodel ensemble from 31 CMIP6 models for the near (2030–2059) and far (2070–2099) future periods, with reference to the base period 1981–2010, under three future Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Observations show that the annual temperature is rising at the rate of 0.63 ˚C decade–1 (significant at the 99% confidence level), while annual precipitation is decreasing at the rate of 6.3 mm decade–1 (significant at the 90% confidence level), averaged over Saudi Arabia. For the near (far) future period, the 66% likely ranges of annual-averaged temperature is projected to increase by 1.2–1.9 (1.2–2.1) ˚C, 1.4–2.1 (2.3–3.4) ˚C, and 1.8–2.7 (4.1–5.8) ˚C under SSP1–2.6, SSP2–4.5, and SSP5–8.5, respectively. Higher warming is projected in the summer than in the winter, while the Northern Arabian Peninsula (NAP) is projected to warm more than Southern Arabian Peninsula (SAP), by the end of the twenty-first century. For precipitation, a dipole-like pattern is found, with a robust increase in annual mean precipitation over the SAP, and a decrease over the NAP. The 66% likely ranges of annual-averaged precipitation over the whole Arabian Peninsula is projected to change by 5 to 28 (–3 to 29) %, 5 to 31 (4 to 49) %, and 1 to 38 (12 to 107) % under SSP1–2.6, SSP2–4.5, and SSP5–8.5, respectively, in the near (far) future. Overall, the full ranges in CMIP6 remain higher than the CMIP5 models, which points towards a higher climate sensitivity of some of the CMIP6 climate models to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as compared to the CMIP5. The CMIP6 dataset confirmed previous findings of changes in future climate over the Arabian Peninsula based on CMIP3 and CMIP5 datasets. The results presented in this study will be useful for impact studies, and ultimately in devising future policies for adaptation in the region.


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