Evaluation of Precipitation Indices over North America from Various Configurations of Regional Climate Models

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilia Paula Diaconescu ◽  
Philippe Gachon ◽  
René Laprise ◽  
John F. Scinocca
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
Precipitation Indices

scholarly journals Future Decreases in Freezing Days across North America

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (19) ◽  
pp. 6923-6935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Rawlins ◽  
Raymond S. Bradley ◽  
Henry F. Diaz ◽  
John S. Kimball ◽  
David A. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rate Of Change ◽  
Mean Annual Temperature ◽  
The North ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Climate Change Assessment

Abstract This study used air temperatures from a suite of regional climate models participating in the North American Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) together with two atmospheric reanalysis datasets to investigate changes in freezing days (defined as days with daily average temperature below freezing) likely to occur between 30-yr baseline (1971–2000) and midcentury (2041–70) periods across most of North America. Changes in NARCCAP ensemble mean winter temperature show a strong gradient with latitude, with warming of over 4°C near Hudson Bay. The decline in freezing days ranges from less than 10 days across north-central Canada to nearly 90 days in the warmest areas of the continent that currently undergo seasonally freezing conditions. The area experiencing freezing days contracts by 0.9–1.0 × 106 km2 (5.7%–6.4% of the total area). Areas with mean annual temperature between 2° and 6°C and a relatively low rate of change in climatological daily temperatures (<0.2°C day−) near the time of spring thaw will encounter the greatest decreases in freezing days. Advances in the timing of spring thaw will exceed the delay in fall freeze across much of the United States, with the reverse pattern likely over most of Canada.

scholarly journals Objective Calibration of Regional Climate Models: Application over Europe and North America

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 819-838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Bellprat ◽  
Sven Kotlarski ◽  
Daniel Lüthi ◽  
Ramón De Elía ◽  
Anne Frigon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hydraulic Conductivity ◽  
North America ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
Shortwave Radiation ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Parameter Calibration ◽  
Geographical Regions

Abstract An important source of model uncertainty in climate models arises from unconfined model parameters in physical parameterizations. These parameters are commonly estimated on the basis of manual adjustments (expert tuning), which carries the risk of overtuning the parameters for a specific climate region or time period. This issue is particularly germane in the case of regional climate models (RCMs), which are often developed and used in one or a few geographical regions only. This study addresses the role of objective parameter calibration in this context. Using a previously developed objective calibration methodology, an RCM is calibrated over two regions (Europe and North America) and is used to investigate the transferability of the results. A total of eight different model parameters are calibrated, using a metamodel to account for parameter interactions. The study demonstrates that the calibration is effective in reducing model biases in both domains. For Europe, this concerns in particular a pronounced reduction of the summer warm bias and the associated overestimation of interannual temperature variability that have persisted through previous expert tuning efforts and are common in many global and regional climate models. The key process responsible for this improvement is an increased hydraulic conductivity. Higher hydraulic conductivity increases the water availability at the land surface and leads to increased evaporative cooling, stronger low cloud formation, and associated reduced incoming shortwave radiation. The calibrated parameter values are found to be almost identical for both domains; that is, the parameter calibration is transferable between the two regions. This is a promising result and indicates that models may be more universal than previously considered.

Evaluation and Comparison of CanRCM4 and CRCM5 to Estimate Probable Maximum Precipitation over North America

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 2069-2089 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Ben Alaya ◽  
F. Zwiers ◽  
X. Zhang
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Extreme Values ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
Probable Maximum Precipitation ◽  
Maximum Precipitation ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Probabilistic Description ◽  
Basin Scale

Abstract Recently dam managers have begun to use data produced by regional climate models to estimate how probable maximum precipitation (PMP) might evolve in the future. Before accomplishing such a task, it is essential to assess PMP estimates derived from regional climate models (RCMs). In the current study PMP over North America estimated from two Canadian RCMs, CanRCM4 and CRCM5, is compared with estimates derived from three reanalysis products: ERA-Interim, NARR, and CFSR. An additional hybrid dataset (MSWEP-ERA) produced by combining precipitation from the Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) dataset and precipitable water (PW) from ERA-Interim is also considered to derive PMP estimates that can serve as a reference. A recently developed approach using a statistical bivariate extreme values distribution is used to provide a probabilistic description of the PMP estimates using the moisture maximization method. Such a probabilistic description naturally allows an assessment of PMP estimates that includes quantification of their uncertainty. While PMP estimates based on the two RCMs exhibit spatial patterns similar to those of MSWEP-ERA and the three sets of reanalyses on the continental scale over North America, CanRCM4 has a tendency for overestimation while CRCM5 has a tendency for modest underestimation. Generally, CRCM5 shows good agreement with ERA-Interim, while CanRCM4 is more comparable to CFSR. Overall, the good ability of the two RCMs to reproduce the major characteristics of the different components involved in the estimation of PMP suggests that they may be useful tools for PMP estimation that could serve as a basis for flood studies at the basin scale.

An evaluation of the surface radiation budget over North America for a suite of regional climate models against surface station observations

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 779-794 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marko Markovic ◽  
Colin G. Jones ◽  
Paul A. Vaillancourt ◽  
Dominique Paquin ◽  
Katja Winger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
Surface Radiation ◽  
Radiation Budget ◽  
Surface Radiation Budget ◽  
Surface Station

Regional Climate Scenarios for use in Nordic Water Resources Studies

2003 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 399-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Rummukainen ◽  
J. Räisänen ◽  
D. Bjørge ◽  
J.H. Christensen ◽  
O.B. Christensen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Climate Scenarios ◽  
Soil Frost ◽  
Nordic Region ◽  
Regional Climate Projections

According to global climate projections, a substantial global climate change will occur during the next decades, under the assumption of continuous anthropogenic climate forcing. Global models, although fundamental in simulating the response of the climate system to anthropogenic forcing are typically geographically too coarse to well represent many regional or local features. In the Nordic region, climate studies are conducted in each of the Nordic countries to prepare regional climate projections with more detail than in global ones. Results so far indicate larger temperature changes in the Nordic region than in the global mean, regional increases and decreases in net precipitation, longer growing season, shorter snow season etc. These in turn affect runoff, snowpack, groundwater, soil frost and moisture, and thus hydropower production potential, flooding risks etc. Regional climate models do not yet fully incorporate hydrology. Water resources studies are carried out off-line using hydrological models. This requires archived meteorological output from climate models. This paper discusses Nordic regional climate scenarios for use in regional water resources studies. Potential end-users of water resources scenarios are the hydropower industry, dam safety instances and planners of other lasting infrastructure exposed to precipitation, river flows and flooding.

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