scholarly journals Regional climate projections in two alpine river basins: Upper Danube and Upper Brahmaputra

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Dobler ◽  
M. Yaoming ◽  
N. Sharma ◽  
S. Kienberger ◽  
B. Ahrens

Abstract. Projections from coarse-grid global circulation models are not suitable for regional estimates of water balance or trends of extreme precipitation and temperature, especially not in complex terrain. Thus, downscaling of global to regionally resolved projections is necessary to provide input to integrated water resources management approaches for river basins like the Upper Danube River Basin (UDRB) and the Upper Brahmaputra River Basin (UBRB). This paper discusses the application of the regional climate model COSMO-CLM as a dynamical downscaling tool. To provide accurate data the COSMO-CLM model output was post-processed by statistical means. This downscaling chain performs well in the baseline period 1971 to 2000. However, COSMO-CLM performs better in the UDRB than in the UBRB because of a longer application experience and a less complex climate in Europe. Different climate change scenarios were downscaled for the time period 1960–2100. The projections show an increase of temperature in both basins and for all seasons. The values are generally higher in the UBRB with the highest values occurring in the region of the Tibetan Plateau. Annual precipitation shows no substantial change. However, seasonal amounts show clear trends, for instance an increasing amount of spring precipitation in the UDRB. Again, the largest trends for different precipitation statistics are projected in the region of the Tibetan Plateau. Here, the projections show up to 50% longer dry periods in the months June to September with a simultaneous increase of about 10% for the maximum amount of precipitation on five consecutive days. For the Assam region in India, the projections also show an increase of 25% in the number of consecutive dry days during the monsoon season leading to prolonged monsoon breaks.

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaomang Liu ◽  
Tiantian Yang ◽  
Koulin Hsu ◽  
Changming Liu ◽  
Soroosh Sorooshian

Abstract. On the Tibetan Plateau, the limited ground-based rainfall information owing to a harsh environment has brought great challenges to hydrological studies. Satellite-based rainfall products, which allow for a better coverage than both radar network and rain gauges on the Tibetan Plateau, can be suitable alternatives for studies on investigating the hydrological processes and climate change. In this study, a newly developed daily satellite-based precipitation product, termed Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information Using Artificial Neural Networks – Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR), is used as input for a hydrologic model to simulate streamflow in the upper Yellow and Yangtze River basins on the Tibetan Plateau. The results show that the simulated streamflows using PERSIANN-CDR precipitation and the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) precipitation are closer to observation than that using limited gauge-based precipitation interpolation in the upper Yangtze River basin. The simulated streamflow using gauge-based precipitation are higher than the streamflow observation during the wet season. In the upper Yellow River basin, gauge-based precipitation, GLDAS precipitation, and PERSIANN-CDR precipitation have similar good performance in simulating streamflow. The evaluation of streamflow simulation capability in this study partly indicates that the PERSIANN-CDR rainfall product has good potential to be a reliable dataset and an alternative information source of a limited gauge network for conducting long-term hydrological and climate studies on the Tibetan Plateau.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1104
Author(s):  
Huanghe Gu ◽  
Xiaoyan Wang

This paper presents an evaluation of the Regional Climate Model version 4.6.1 (RegCM4) at a high-resolution simulation at 10 km applied over the Tibetan Plateau. This simulation covers the period from 1980 to 2010 and is nested in a RegCM4 simulation at 30-km resolution, which is driven by the main European Centre for Medium-Range Weather and Forecasting reanalysis (ERA-Interim reanalysis) dataset. A new daily observational dataset is employed as reference data to evaluate the temperature and precipitation simulations for the inner model domain and the five largest river basins that originated in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) (i.e., the source region of Yangtze River, Yellow River, Mekong River, Salween River, and Brahmaputra River). In comparison with the low-resolution model run (R30), the cold biases for the area-averaged temperature were reduced from −2.5 to −0.1° C and the wet biases in summer mean precipitation were reduced from 58% to 25% in the high-resolution model run (R10). The substantial warming trends and slight wetting trends were basically reproduced by both RegCM4 simulations. Annual mean precipitation trends from both simulations show a better agreement with the observations than the ERA-Interim, which underestimates the annual mean precipitation trends in most regions, whereas both the RegCM4 and ERA-Interim consistently underestimate the annual mean temperature trends when compared with the observations. In addition, the overall improvement in the modeling trends for annual mean temperature and precipitation in R10 is limited when compared with R30. The extreme precipitation was also captured reasonably in both RegCM4 simulations, and the better performance is detected in the R10 simulation. The findings above show that RegCM4 with a high-resolution of 10 km is capable of reproducing the major regional climate features over the TP, but a great deal of uncertainties still exist, especially in the subregion of the Brahmaputra River basin. Thus, the 10-km resolution simulation in RegCM4 may still not be fine enough to resolve the topoclimates over the complex Himalayan terrain in the Brahmaputra River basin.


2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 230-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingjing Zhu ◽  
Jiming Jin ◽  
Xin Liu ◽  
Lei Tian ◽  
Qunhui Zhang

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengcheng Ye ◽  
Yibo Yang ◽  
Xiaomin Fang ◽  
Weilin Zhang ◽  
Chunhui Song ◽  
...  

<p>Global cooling, the early uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, and the retreat of the Paratethys are three main factors that regulate long-term climate change in the Asian interior during the Cenozoic. However, the debated elevation history of the Tibetan Plateau and the overlapping climate effects of the Tibetan Plateau uplift and Paratethys retreat makes it difficult to assess the driving mechanism on regional climate change in a particular period. Some recent progress suggests that precisely dated Paratethys transgression/regression cycles appear to have fluctuated over broad regions with low relief in the northern Tibetan Plateau in the middle Eocene–early Oligocene, when the global climate was characterized by generally continuous cooling followed by the rapid Eocene–Oligocene climate transition (EOT). Therefore, a middle Eocene–early Oligocene record from the Asian interior with unambiguous paleoclimatic implications offers an opportunity to distinguish between the climatic effects of the Paratethys retreat and those of global cooling.</p><p>Here, we present a complete paleolake salinity record from middle Eocene to early Miocene (~42-29 Ma) in the Qaidam Basin using detailed clay boron content and clay mineralogical investigations. Two independent paleosalimeters, equivalent boron and Couch’s salinity, collectively present a three-staged salinity evolution, from an oligohaline–mesohaline environment in the middle Eocene (42-~34 Ma) to a mesosaline environment in late Eocene-early Oligocene (~34-~29 Ma). This clay boron-derived salinity evolution is further supported by the published chloride-based and ostracod-based paleosalinity estimates in the Qaidam Basin. Our quantitative paleolake reconstruction between ~42 and 29 Ma in the Qaidam Basin resembles the hydroclimate change in the neighboring Xining Basin, of which both present good agreement with changes of marine benthic oxygen isotope compositions. We thus speculated that the secular trend of clay boron-derived paleolake salinity in ~42-29 Ma is primarily controlled by global cooling, which regulates regional climate change by influencing the evaporation capacity in the moisture source of Qaidam Basin. Superimposed on this trend, the Paratethys transgression/regression cycles served as an important factor regulating wet/dry fluctuations in the Asian interior between ~42 and ~34 Ma.</p>


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Dobler ◽  
G. Bürger ◽  
J. Stötter

Abstract. The objectives of the present investigation are (i) to study the effects of climate change on precipitation extremes and (ii) to assess the uncertainty in the climate projections. The investigation is performed on the Lech catchment, located in the Northern Limestone Alps. In order to estimate the uncertainty in the climate projections, two statistical downscaling models as well as a number of global and regional climate models were considered. The downscaling models applied are the Expanded Downscaling (XDS) technique and the Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG). The XDS model, which is driven by analyzed or simulated large-scale synoptic fields, has been calibrated using ECMWF-interim reanalysis data and local station data. LARS-WG is controlled through stochastic parameters representing local precipitation variability, which are calibrated from station data only. Changes in precipitation mean and variability as simulated by climate models were then used to perturb the parameters of LARS-WG in order to generate climate change scenarios. In our study we use climate simulations based on the A1B emission scenario. The results show that both downscaling models perform well in reproducing observed precipitation extremes. In general, the results demonstrate that the projections are highly variable. The choice of both the GCM and the downscaling method are found to be essential sources of uncertainty. For spring and autumn, a slight tendency toward an increase in the intensity of future precipitation extremes is obtained, as a number of simulations show statistically significant increases in the intensity of 90th and 99th percentiles of precipitation on wet days as well as the 5- and 20-yr return values.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (18) ◽  
pp. 7327-7346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiuquan Wang ◽  
Guohe Huang ◽  
Jinliang Liu ◽  
Zhong Li ◽  
Shan Zhao

Abstract In this study, high-resolution climate projections over Ontario, Canada, are developed through an ensemble modeling approach to provide reliable and ready-to-use climate scenarios for assessing plausible effects of future climatic changes at local scales. The Providing Regional Climates for Impacts Studies (PRECIS) regional modeling system is adopted to conduct ensemble simulations in a continuous run from 1950 to 2099, driven by the boundary conditions from a HadCM3-based perturbed physics ensemble. Simulations of temperature and precipitation for the baseline period are first compared to the observed values to validate the performance of the ensemble in capturing the current climatology over Ontario. Future projections for the 2030s, 2050s, and 2080s are then analyzed to help understand plausible changes in its local climate in response to global warming. The analysis indicates that there is likely to be an obvious warming trend with time over the entire province. The increase in average temperature is likely to be varying within [2.6, 2.7]°C in the 2030s, [4.0, 4.7]°C in the 2050s, and [5.9, 7.4]°C in the 2080s. Likewise, the annual total precipitation is projected to increase by [4.5, 7.1]% in the 2030s, [4.6, 10.2]% in the 2050s, and [3.2, 17.5]% in the 2080s. Furthermore, projections of rainfall intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) curves are developed to help understand the effects of global warming on extreme precipitation events. The results suggest that there is likely to be an overall increase in the intensity of rainfall storms. Finally, a data portal named Ontario Climate Change Data Portal (CCDP) is developed to ensure decision-makers and impact researchers have easy and intuitive access to the refined regional climate change scenarios.


2018 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 05040
Author(s):  
Guangyao Dai ◽  
Songhua Wu ◽  
Xiaoquan Song ◽  
Xiaochun Zhai

Cirrus clouds affect the energy budget and hydrological cycle of the earth’s atmosphere. The Tibetan Plateau (TP) plays a significant role in the global and regional climate. Optical and geometrical properties of cirrus clouds in the TP were measured in July-August 2014 by lidar and radiosonde. The statistics and temperature dependences of the corresponding properties are analyzed. The cirrus cloud formations are discussed with respect to temperature deviation and dynamic processes.


Author(s):  
Dao Nguyen Khoi ◽  
Truong Thao Sam ◽  
Pham Thi Loi ◽  
Bui Viet Hung ◽  
Van Thinh Nguyen

Abstract In this paper, the responses of hydro-meteorological drought to changing climate in the Be River Basin located in Southern Vietnam are investigated. Climate change scenarios for the study area were statistically downscaled using the Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator tool, which incorporates climate projections from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) based on an ensemble of five general circulation models (Can-ESM2, CNRM-CM5, HadGEM2-AO, IPSL-CM5A-LR, and MPI-ESM-MR) under two Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). The Soil and Water Assessment Tool model was employed to simulate streamflow for the baseline time period and three consecutive future 20 year periods of 2030s (2021–2040), 2050s (2041–2060), and 2070s (2061–2080). Based on the simulation results, the Standardized Precipitation Index and Standardized Discharge Index were estimated to evaluate the features of hydro-meteorological droughts. The hydrological drought has 1-month lag time from the meteorological drought and the hydro-meteorological droughts have negative correlations with the El Niño Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Under the climate changing impacts, the trends of drought severity will decrease in the future; while the trends of drought frequency will increase in the near future period (2030s), but decrease in the following future periods (2050 and 2070s). The findings of this study can provide useful information to the policy and decisionmakers for a better future planning and management of water resources in the study region.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaomang Liu ◽  
Tiantian Yang ◽  
Koulin Hsu ◽  
Changming Liu ◽  
Soroosh Sorooshian

Abstract. On the Tibetan Plateau, the limited ground-based rainfall information owing to a harsh environment has brought great challenges to hydrological studies. Satellite-based rainfall products, which allow a better coverage than both radar network and rain gauges on the Tibetan Plateau, can be suitable observation alternatives for investigating the hydrological processes and climate change. In this study, a newly developed daily satellite-based precipitation product, termed Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information Using Artificial Neural Networks–Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR), is used as input of a hydrologic model to simulate streamflow in the upper Yellow and Yangtze River Basin on the Tibetan Plateau. The results show that the simulated streamflow using PERSIANN-CDR precipitation is closer to observation than that using limited gauge-based precipitation interpolation in the upper Yangtze River Basin. The simulated streamflow using gauge-based precipitation are higher than the streamflow observation during the wet season. In the upper Yellow River Basin, PERSIANN-CDR precipitation and gauge-based precipitation have similar good performance in simulating streamflow. The evaluation of streamflow simulation capability in this study partly indicates that PERSIANN-CDR rainfall product has good potentials to be a reliable dataset and an alternative information source besides the sparse gauge network for conducting long term hydrological and climate studies on the Tibetan Plateau.


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