scholarly journals Effects of Bias-Correcting Climate Model Data on the Projection of Future Changes in High Flows

Hydrology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Wörner ◽  
Phillip Kreye ◽  
Günter Meon
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Goodness Of Fit ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Correction Method ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Northwestern Part ◽  
Model Data ◽  
High Flows

Bias-correction methods are commonly applied to climate model data in hydrological climate impact studies. This is due to the often large deviations between simulated and observed climate variables. These biases may cause unrealistic simulation results when directly using the climate model data as input for hydrological models. Our analysis of the EURO-CORDEX (Coordinated Downscaling Experiment for Europe) data for the Northwestern part of Germany showed substantial biases for all climatological input variables needed by the hydrological model PANTA RHEI. The sensitivity for climatological input data demonstrated that changes in only one climate variable significantly affect the simulated average discharge and mean annual peak flow. The application of bias correction methods of different complexity on the climate model data improved the plausibility of hydrological modeling results for the historical period 1971–2000. The projections for the future period 2069–2099 for high flows indicate on average small changes for representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and an increase of approximately 10% for RCP8.5 when applying non-bias corrected climate model data. These values significantly differed when applying bias correction. The bias correction methods were evaluated in terms of their ability to (a) maintain the change signal for precipitation and (b) the goodness of fit for hydrological parameters for the historical period. Our results for this evaluation indicated that no bias correction method can explicitly be preferred over the others.

scholarly journals Bias correction of temperature and precipitation data for regional climate model application to the Rhine basin

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 5377-5413 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Terink ◽  
R. T. W. L. Hurkmans ◽  
P. J. J. F. Torfs ◽  
R. Uijlenhoet
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Correction Method ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Infiltration Capacity ◽  
Rhine Basin ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Precipitation And Temperature

Abstract. In many climate impact studies hydrological models are forced with meteorological forcing data without an attempt to assess the quality of these forcing data. The objective of this study is to compare downscaled ERA15 (ECMWF-reanalysis data) precipitation and temperature with observed precipitation and temperature and apply a bias correction to these forcing variables. The bias-corrected precipitation and temperature data will be used in another study as input for the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model. Observations were available for 134 sub-basins throughout the Rhine basin at a temporal resolution of one day from the International Commission for the Hydrology of the Rhine basin (CHR). Precipitation is corrected by fitting the mean and coefficient of variation (CV) of the observations. Temperature is corrected by fitting the mean and standard deviation of the observations. It seems that the uncorrected ERA15 is too warm and too wet for most of the Rhine basin. The bias correction leads to satisfactory results, precipitation and temperature differences decreased significantly. Corrections were largest during summer for both precipitation and temperature, and for September and October for precipitation only. Besides the statistics the correction method was intended to correct for, it is also found to improve the correlations for the fraction of wet days and lag-1 autocorrelations between ERA15 and the observations.

scholarly journals Hydrological Modeling to Evaluate Climate Model Simulations and Their Bias Correction

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (8) ◽  
pp. 1321-1337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsti Hakala ◽  
Nans Addor ◽  
Jan Seibert
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Snow Accumulation ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Model Simulations ◽  
Process Oriented ◽  
Climate Model Simulations

Abstract Variables simulated by climate models are usually evaluated independently. Yet, climate change impacts often stem from the combined effect of these variables, making the evaluation of intervariable relationships essential. These relationships can be evaluated in a statistical framework (e.g., using correlation coefficients), but this does not test whether complex processes driven by nonlinear relationships are correctly represented. To overcome this limitation, we propose to evaluate climate model simulations in a more process-oriented framework using hydrological modeling. Our modeling chain consists of 12 regional climate models (RCMs) from the Coordinated Downscaling Experiment–European Domain (EURO-CORDEX) forced by five general circulation models (GCMs), eight Swiss catchments, 10 optimized parameter sets for the hydrological model Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning (HBV), and one bias correction method [quantile mapping (QM)]. We used seven discharge metrics to explore the representation of different hydrological processes under current climate. Specific combinations of biases in GCM–RCM simulations can lead to significant biases in simulated discharge (e.g., excessive precipitation in the winter months combined with a cold temperature bias). Other biases, such as exaggerated snow accumulation, do not necessarily impact temperature over the historical period to the point where discharge is affected. Our results confirm the importance of bias correction; when all catchments, GCM–RCMs, and discharge metrics were considered, QM improved discharge simulations in the vast majority of all cases. Additionally, we present a ranking of climate models according to their hydrological performance. Ranking GCM–RCMs is most meaningful prior to bias correction since QM reduces differences between GCM–RCM-driven hydrological simulations. Overall, this work introduces a multivariate assessment method of GCM–RCMs, which enables a more process-oriented evaluation of their simulations.

scholarly journals An improved statistical bias correction method that also corrects dry climate models

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Lehner ◽  
Imran Nadeem ◽  
Herbert Formayer
Keyword(s):  
Observational Data ◽  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Climate Change Signal ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Statistical Bias ◽  
Model Data ◽  
Direct Model

Abstract. Daily meteorological data from climate models is needed for many climate impact studies, e.g. in hydrology or agriculture but direct model output can contain large systematic errors. Thus, statistical bias correcting is applied to correct the raw model data. However, up to now no method has been introduced that fulfills the following demands simultaneously: (1) The long term climatological trends (climate change signal) should not be altered during bias correction, (2) the model data should match the observational data in the historical period as accurate as possible in a climatological sense and (3) models with too little wet days (precipitation above 0.1 mm) should be corrected accurately, which means that the wet day frequency is conserved. We improve the already existing quantile mapping approach so that it satisfies all three conditions. Our new method is called empirical percentile–percentile mapping (EPPM) which uses empirical distributions for meteorological variables and is therefore computationally inexpensive. The correction of precipitation is particularly challenging so our main focus is on precipitation. EPPM corrects the historical model data so that precipitation sums and wet days are equal to the observational data.

scholarly journals A trend-preserving bias correction – the ISI-MIP approach

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Hempel ◽  
K. Frieler ◽  
L. Warszawski ◽  
J. Schewe ◽  
F. Piontek
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Correction Method ◽  
Model Intercomparison ◽  
Model Data ◽  
Climate Signal ◽  
Bias Correction Method ◽  
Intercomparison Project ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Statistical bias correction is commonly applied within climate impact modeling to correct climate model data for systematic deviations of the simulated historical data from observations. Methods are based on transfer functions generated to map the distribution of the simulated historical data to that of the observations. Those are subsequently applied to correct the future projections. Thereby the climate signal is modified in a way not necessarily preserving the trend of the original climate model data. Here, we present the bias correction method that was developed within ISI-MIP, the first Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project. ISI-MIP is designed to synthesise impact projections in the agriculture, water, biome, health, and infrastructure sectors at different levels of global warming. However, bias-corrected climate data that are used as input for the impact simulations could be only provided over land areas. To ensure consistency with the global (land + ocean) temperature information the bias correction method has to preserve the warming signal. Here we present the applied bias correction method that preserves the absolute changes in monthly temperature, and relative changes in monthly values of precipitation and the other variables needed for ISI-MIP. The proposed methodology represents a modification of the transfer function approach applied in the Water Model Intercomparison Project (Water-MIP). Correction of the monthly mean is followed by correction of the daily variability about the monthly mean.

scholarly journals Projected increases in surface melt and ice loss for the Northern and Southern Patagonian Icefields

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Bravo ◽  
Deniz Bozkurt ◽  
Andrew N. Ross ◽  
Duncan J. Quincey
Keyword(s):  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Emission Scenarios ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Model Data ◽  
Surface Mass ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Surface Melt ◽  
Frontal Ablation

AbstractThe Northern Patagonian Icefield (NPI) and the Southern Patagonian Icefield (SPI) have increased their ice mass loss in recent decades. In view of the impacts of glacier shrinkage in Patagonia, an assessment of the potential future surface mass balance (SMB) of the icefields is critical. We seek to provide this assessment by modelling the SMB between 1976 and 2050 for both icefields, using regional climate model data (RegCM4.6) and a range of emission scenarios. For the NPI, reductions between 1.5 m w.e. (RCP2.6) and 1.9 m w.e. (RCP8.5) were estimated in the mean SMB during the period 2005–2050 compared to the historical period (1976–2005). For the SPI, the estimated reductions were between 1.1 m w.e. (RCP2.6) and 1.5 m w.e. (RCP8.5). Recently frontal ablation estimates suggest that mean SMB in the SPI is positively biased by 1.5 m w.e., probably due to accumulation overestimation. If it is assumed that frontal ablation rates of the recent past will continue, ice loss and sea-level rise contribution will increase. The trend towards lower SMB is mostly explained by an increase in surface melt. Positive ice loss feedbacks linked to increasing in meltwater availability are expected for calving glaciers.

scholarly journals Multivariate bias adjustment of high-dimensional climate simulations: the Rank Resampling for Distributions and Dependences (R<sup>2</sup>D<sup>2</sup>) bias correction

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 3175-3196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathieu Vrac
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Grid Cell ◽  
Dependence Structure ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Site Dependence

Abstract. Climate simulations often suffer from statistical biases with respect to observations or reanalyses. It is therefore common to correct (or adjust) those simulations before using them as inputs into impact models. However, most bias correction (BC) methods are univariate and so do not account for the statistical dependences linking the different locations and/or physical variables of interest. In addition, they are often deterministic, and stochasticity is frequently needed to investigate climate uncertainty and to add constrained randomness to climate simulations that do not possess a realistic variability. This study presents a multivariate method of rank resampling for distributions and dependences (R2D2) bias correction allowing one to adjust not only the univariate distributions but also their inter-variable and inter-site dependence structures. Moreover, the proposed R2D2 method provides some stochasticity since it can generate as many multivariate corrected outputs as the number of statistical dimensions (i.e., number of grid cell  ×  number of climate variables) of the simulations to be corrected. It is based on an assumption of stability in time of the dependence structure – making it possible to deal with a high number of statistical dimensions – that lets the climate model drive the temporal properties and their changes in time. R2D2 is applied on temperature and precipitation reanalysis time series with respect to high-resolution reference data over the southeast of France (1506 grid cell). Bivariate, 1506-dimensional and 3012-dimensional versions of R2D2 are tested over a historical period and compared to a univariate BC. How the different BC methods behave in a climate change context is also illustrated with an application to regional climate simulations over the 2071–2100 period. The results indicate that the 1d-BC basically reproduces the climate model multivariate properties, 2d-R2D2 is only satisfying in the inter-variable context, 1506d-R2D2 strongly improves inter-site properties and 3012d-R2D2 is able to account for both. Applications of the proposed R2D2 method to various climate datasets are relevant for many impact studies. The perspectives of improvements are numerous, such as introducing stochasticity in the dependence itself, questioning its stability assumption, and accounting for temporal properties adjustment while including more physics in the adjustment procedures.

scholarly journals A novel bias correction methodology for climate impact simulations

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1999-2042 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Sippel ◽  
F. E. L. Otto ◽  
M. Forkel ◽  
M. R. Allen ◽  
B. P. Guillod ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Correlation Structure ◽  
Terrestrial Biosphere ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem Model ◽  
Multivariate Correlation ◽  
Impact Simulations

Abstract. Understanding, quantifying and attributing the impacts of extreme weather and climate events in the terrestrial biosphere is crucial for societal adaptation in a changing climate. However, climate model simulations generated for this purpose typically exhibit biases in their output that hinders any straightforward assessment of impacts. To overcome this issue, various bias correction strategies are routinely used to alleviate climate model deficiencies most of which have been criticized for physical inconsistency and the non-preservation of the multivariate correlation structure. In this study, we introduce a novel, resampling-based bias correction scheme that fully preserves the physical consistency and multivariate correlation structure of the model output. This procedure strongly improves the representation of climatic extremes and variability in a large regional climate model ensemble (HadRM3P, climateprediction.net/weatherathome), which is illustrated for summer extremes in temperature and rainfall over Central Europe. Moreover, we simulate biosphere–atmosphere fluxes of carbon and water using a terrestrial ecosystem model (LPJmL) driven by the bias corrected climate forcing. The resampling-based bias correction yields strongly improved statistical distributions of carbon and water fluxes, including the extremes. Our results thus highlight the importance to carefully consider statistical moments beyond the mean for climate impact simulations. In conclusion, the present study introduces an approach to alleviate climate model biases in a physically consistent way and demonstrates that this yields strongly improved simulations of climate extremes and associated impacts in the terrestrial biosphere. A wider uptake of our methodology by the climate and impact modelling community therefore seems desirable for accurately quantifying past, current and future extremes.

scholarly journals Spatial disaggregation of bias-corrected GCM precipitation for improved hydrologic simulation: Ping River Basin, Thailand

2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1373-1390 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Sharma ◽  
A. Das Gupta ◽  
M. S. Babel
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Bias Correction ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Correction Method ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Bias Correction Method ◽  
Spatial Disaggregation ◽  
Grid Nodes

Abstract. Global Climate Models (GCMs) precipitation scenarios are often characterized by biases and coarse resolution that limit their direct application for basin level hydrological modeling. Bias-correction and spatial disaggregation methods are employed to improve the quality of ECHAM4/OPYC SRES A2 and B2 precipitation for the Ping River Basin in Thailand. Bias-correction method, based on gamma-gamma transformation, is applied to improve the frequency and amount of raw GCM precipitation at the grid nodes. Spatial disaggregation model parameters (β,σ2), based on multiplicative random cascade theory, are estimated using Mandelbrot-Kahane-Peyriere (MKP) function at q=1 for each month. Bias-correction method exhibits ability of reducing biases from the frequency and amount when compared with the computed frequency and amount at grid nodes based on spatially interpolated observed rainfall data. Spatial disaggregation model satisfactorily reproduces the observed trend and variation of average rainfall amount except during heavy rainfall events with certain degree of spatial and temporal variations. Finally, the hydrologic model, HEC-HMS, is applied to simulate the observed runoff for upper Ping River Basin based on the modified GCM precipitation scenarios and the raw GCM precipitation. Precipitation scenario developed with bias-correction and disaggregation provides an improved reproduction of basin level runoff observations.

scholarly journals Effects of climate model radiation, humidity and wind estimates on hydrological simulations

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Haddeland ◽  
J. Heinke ◽  
F. Voß ◽  
S. Eisner ◽  
C. Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bias Correction ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Correction Method ◽  
Hydrological Models ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Effects Of Radiation ◽  
Precipitation And Temperature

Abstract. Due to biases in the output of climate models, a bias correction is often needed to make the output suitable for use in hydrological simulations. In most cases only the temperature and precipitation values are bias corrected. However, often there are also biases in other variables such as radiation, humidity and wind speed. In this study we tested to what extent it is also needed to bias correct these variables. Responses to radiation, humidity and wind estimates from two climate models for four large-scale hydrological models are analysed. For the period 1971–2000 these hydrological simulations are compared to simulations using meteorological data based on observations and reanalysis; i.e. the baseline simulation. In both forcing datasets originating from climate models precipitation and temperature are bias corrected to the baseline forcing dataset. Hence, it is only effects of radiation, humidity and wind estimates that are tested here. The direct use of climate model outputs result in substantial different evapotranspiration and runoff estimates, when compared to the baseline simulations. A simple bias correction method is implemented and tested by rerunning the hydrological models using bias corrected radiation, humidity and wind values. The results indicate that bias correction can successfully be used to match the baseline simulations. Finally, historical (1971–2000) and future (2071–2100) model simulations resulting from using bias corrected forcings are compared to the results using non-bias corrected forcings. The relative changes in simulated evapotranspiration and runoff are relatively similar for the bias corrected and non bias corrected hydrological projections, although the absolute evapotranspiration and runoff numbers are often very different. The simulated relative and absolute differences when using bias corrected and non bias corrected climate model radiation, humidity and wind values are, however, smaller than literature reported differences resulting from using bias corrected and non bias corrected climate model precipitation and temperature values.

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