Anthropogenic influence on summer precipitation trends over South America in CMIP5 models

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (10) ◽  
pp. 3172-3177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina S. Vera ◽  
Leandro Díaz
2015 ◽  
Vol 131 ◽  
pp. 11-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiner Palomino-Lemus ◽  
Samir Córdoba-Machado ◽  
Sonia Raquel Gámiz-Fortis ◽  
Yolanda Castro-Díez ◽  
María Jesús Esteban-Parra

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (13) ◽  
pp. 5357-5369
Author(s):  
Chunhui Lu ◽  
Fraser C. Lott ◽  
Ying Sun ◽  
Peter A. Stott ◽  
Nikolaos Christidis

AbstractIn China, summer precipitation contributes a major part of the total precipitation amount in a year and has major impacts on society and human life. Whether any changes in summer precipitation are affected by external forcing on the climate system is an important issue. In this study, an optimal fingerprinting method was used to compare the observed changes of total, heavy, moderate, and light precipitation in summer derived from newly homogenized observation data with the simulations from multiple climate models participating in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). The results demonstrate that the anthropogenic forcing signal can be detected and separated from the natural forcing signal in the observed increase of seasonal accumulated precipitation amount for heavy precipitation in summer in China and eastern China (EC). The simulated changes in heavy precipitation are generally consistent with observed change in China but are underestimated in EC. When the changes in precipitation of different intensities are considered simultaneously, the human influence on simultaneous changes in moderate and light precipitation can be detected in China and EC in summer. Changes attributable to anthropogenic forcing explain most of the observed regional changes for all categories of summer precipitation, and natural forcing contributes little. In the future, with increasing anthropogenic influence, the attribution-constrained projection suggests that heavy precipitation in summer will increase more than that from the model raw outputs. Society may therefore face a higher risk of heavy precipitation in the future.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabina Abba-Omar ◽  
Francesca Raffaele ◽  
Erika Coppola ◽  
Daniela Jacob ◽  
Claas Teichmann ◽  
...  

<p>The impact of climate change on precipitation over Southern Africa is of particular interest due to its possible devastating societal impacts. To add to this, simulating precipitation is challenging and models tend to show strong biases over this region, especially during the Austral Summer (DJF) months. One of the reasons for this is the mis-representation of the Angolan Low (AL) and its influence on Southern Africa’s Summer precipitation in the models. Therefore, this study aims to explore and compare different models’ ability to capture the AL and its link to precipitation variability as well as consider the impact climate change may have on this link. We also explore how the interaction between ENSO, another important mode of variability for precipitation, and the Angolan Low, impact precipitation, how the models simulate this and whether this could change in the future under climate change. </p><p>We computed the position and strength of the AL in reanalysis data and compared these results to three different model ensembles with varying resolutions. Namely, the CORDEX-CORE ensemble (CCORE), a new phase of CORDEX simulations with higher resolutions (0.22 degrees), the lower resolution (0.44 degrees) CORDEX-phase 1 ensemble (C44) and the CMIP5 models that drive the two RCM ensembles. We also used Self Organizing Maps to group DJF yearly anomaly patterns and identify which combination of ENSO and AL strength scenarios are responsible for particularly wet or dry conditions. Regression analysis was performed to analyze the relationships between precipitation and the AL and ENSO. This analysis was repeated for near (2041-2060) and far (2080-2099) future climate and compared with the present to understand how the strength of the AL, and its connection to precipitation variability and ENSO, changes in the future. </p><p>We found that, in line with previous studies, models with stronger AL tend to produce more rainfall. CCORE tends to simulate a stronger AL than C44 and therefore, higher precipitation biases. However, the regression analysis shows us that CCORE is able to capture the relationship between precipitation and the AL strength variability as well as ENSO better than the other ensembles. We found that generally dry rainfall patterns over Southern Africa are associated with a weak AL and El Nino event whereas wet rainfall patterns occur during a strong AL and La Nina year. While the models are able to capture this, they also tend to show more neutral ENSO conditions associated with these wet and dry patterns which possibly indicates less of a connection between AL strength and ENSO than seen in the observed results. Analysis of the future results indicates that the AL weakens, this is shown across all the ensembles and could be a contributing factor to some of the drying seen. These results have applications in understanding and improving model representation of precipitation over Southern Africa as well as providing some insight into the impact of climate change on precipitation and some of its associated dynamics over this region.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 124011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiner Palomino-Lemus ◽  
Samir Córdoba-Machado ◽  
Sonia Raquel Gámiz-Fortis ◽  
Yolanda Castro-Díez ◽  
María Jesús Esteban-Parra

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (14) ◽  
pp. 8051-8064 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Solmon ◽  
V. S. Nair ◽  
M. Mallet

Abstract. Over the past decade, aerosol optical depth (AOD) observations based on satellite and ground measurements have shown a significant increase over Arabia and the Arabian Sea, attributed to an intensification of regional dust activity. Recent studies have also suggested that west Asian dust forcing could induce a positive response of Indian monsoon precipitations on a weekly timescale. Using observations and a regional climate model including interactive slab-ocean and dust aerosol schemes, the present study investigates possible climatic links between the increasing June–July–August–September (JJAS) Arabian dust activity and precipitation trends over southern India during the 2000–2009 decade. Meteorological reanalysis and AOD observations suggest that the observed decadal increase of dust activity and a simultaneous intensification of summer precipitation trend over southern India are both linked to a deepening of JJAS surface pressure conditions over the Arabian Sea. In the first part of the study, we analyze the mean climate response to dust radiative forcing over the domain, discussing notably the relative role of Arabian vs. Indo-Pakistani dust regions. In the second part of the study, we show that the model skills in reproducing regional dynamical patterns and southern Indian precipitation trends are significantly improved only when an increasing dust emission trend is imposed on the basis of observations. We conclude that although interannual climate variability might primarily determine the observed regional pattern of increasing dust activity and precipitation during the 2000–2009 decade, the associated dust radiative forcing might in return induce a critical dynamical feedback contributing to enhancing regional moisture convergence and JJAS precipitations over southern India.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosmeri Porfírio da Rocha ◽  
Michelle Simões Reboita ◽  
Natália Machado Crespo ◽  
Eduardo Marcos de Jesus ◽  
Andressa Andrade Cardoso ◽  
...  

<p>Cyclones developing in eastern coast of South America impact weather and control the climate in most parts of the continent as well as over the South Atlantic Ocean. Current knowledge of these cyclones shows that they can have different thermal and dynamic structures along their lifecycles being classified as tropical, subtropical or extratropical. Cyclones occurring over the sea generate intense near-surface winds with major impacts on human activities and ecosystems. Given this context, we are producing fine resolution (~25 km) dynamic downscaling with RegCM4 to investigate the climatic trends of the different phases of cyclones over the southwest South Atlantic Ocean. Special emphasis will be given on the contribution of subtropical cyclones causing extreme events (rainfall and wind) in eastern Brazil. The simulations cover South America and wider area of South Atlantic Ocean. For evaluation simulation RegCM4 is forced by ERA-Interim reanalysis, while for the projections by CMIP5 models under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Cyclones are tracked using an algorithm based on cyclonic relative vorticity. In this study we present the climatology of all cyclones provided by the ERA-Interim evaluation simulation in the period 1979-2015. Basically, we discuss the ability of fine resolution simulation in reproducing the main cyclogenetic areas over the continent, seasonality and interannual variability of cyclones. Comparisons with previous simulations allow discussing the impact of fine resolution downscaling on the climatological features of all cyclones and their classification in South America domain.    </p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 3317-3337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nagio Hirota ◽  
Yukari N. Takayabu ◽  
Atsushi Hamada

Abstract Reproducibility of summer precipitation over northern Eurasia in climate models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) is evaluated in comparison with several observational and reanalysis datasets. All CMIP5 models under- and overestimate precipitation over western and eastern Eurasia, respectively, and the reproducibility measured using the Taylor skill score is largely determined by the severity of these west–east precipitation biases. The following are the two possible causes for the precipitation biases: very little cloud cover and very strong local evaporation–precipitation coupling. The models underestimate cloud cover over Eurasia, allowing too much sunshine and leading to a warm bias at the surface. The associated cyclonic circulation biases in the lower troposphere weaken the modeled moisture transport from the Atlantic to western Eurasia and enhance the northward moisture flux along the eastern coast. Once the dry west and wet east biases appear in the models, they become amplified because of stronger evaporation–precipitation coupling. The CMIP5 models reproduce precipitation events well over a time scale of several days, including the associated low pressure systems and local convection. However, the modeled precipitation events are relatively weaker over western Eurasia and stronger over eastern Eurasia compared to the observations, and these are consistent with the biases found in the seasonal average fields.


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