Abstract. Climate change may intensify during the second half of the current century.
Changes in temperature and precipitation can exert a significant impact on
the regional hydrologic cycle. Because the land surface serves as the hub of
interactions among the variables constituting the energy and water cycles,
evaluating the land surface processes is essential to detail the future
climate. In this study, we employ a trusted soil–vegetation–atmosphere
transfer scheme, called the University of Torino model of land Processes
Interaction with Atmosphere (UTOPIA), in offline simulations to quantify the
changes in hydrologic components in the Alpine area and northern Italy,
between the period of 1961–1990 and 2071–2100. The regional climate
projections are obtained by the Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3) via
two emission scenarios – A2 and B2 from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. The hydroclimate
projections, especially from A2, indicate that evapotranspiration generally
increases, especially over the plain areas, and consequently the surface soil
moisture decreases during summer, falling below the wilting point threshold
for an extra month. In the high-mountain areas, due to the earlier snowmelt, the land surface becomes snowless for an additional month. The
annual mean number of dry (wet) days increases remarkably (slightly), thus
increasing the risk of severe droughts, and slightly increasing the risk of
floods coincidently. Our results have serious implications for human life,
including agricultural production, water sustainability, and general
infrastructures, over the Alpine and adjacent plain areas and can be used to
plan the managements of water resources, floods, irrigation, forestry,
hydropower, and many other relevant activities.
High resolution forecast of heavy precipitation with Lokal Modell: analysis of two case studies in the Alpine area
