scholarly journals Atmospheric Rivers in CMIP5 climate ensembles downscaled with a high resolution regional climate model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Gröger ◽  
Christian Dieterich ◽  
Cyril Dutheil ◽  
Markus Meier ◽  
Dmitry Sein
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Heavy Precipitation ◽  
Atmospheric Rivers ◽  
Precipitation Events

Abstract. Atmospheric rivers (AR) are important drivers of heavy precipitation events in western and central Europe and often associated with intense floods. So far, the ARs response to climate change in Europe has been investigated by global climate models within the CMIP5 framework. However, their spatial resolution between 1 and 3° is too coarse for an adequate assessment of local to regional precipitation patterns. Using a regional climate model with 0.22° resolution we downscale an ensemble of 24 global climate simulations following the greenhouse gas scenarios RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP8.5. The performance of the model was tested against ER-I reanalysis data. The downscaled simulation notably better represents small-scale spatial characteristics which is most obvious over the terrain of the Iberian Peninsula where the AR induced precipitation pattern clearly reflect eat-west striking topographical elements resulting in zonal bands of high and low AR impact. Over central Europe the model simulates a less far propagation of ARs toward eastern Europe compared to ERA-I but a higher share of AR forced heavy precipitation events especially Norway where 60 % of annual precipitation maxima are related to ARs. We find ARs more frequent and more intense in a future warmer climate especially in the higher emission scenarios whereas the changes are mostly mitigated under the assumption of RCP2.6. They also propagate further inland to eastern Europe in a warmer climate. In the high emission scenario RCP8.5 AR induced precipitation rates increase between 20 and 40 % in western central Europe while mean precipitation rates increase by maximal 12 %. Over the Iberian Peninsula AR induced precipitation rates slightly decrease around −6 % but mean rates decrease around −15 %. The result of these changes is an overall increased contribution of ARs to heavy precipitation with greatest impact over Iberia (15–30 %). Over Norway average AR precipitation rates decline between −5 to −30 %. These reductions most likely the originate from regional dynamical changes. In fact, over Norway we find ARs originating from > 60° N are reduced by up to 20 % while those originating south of 45° N are increased. Also, no clear climate change signal is seen for AR related heavy precipitation and annual maximum precipitation over Norway where the uncertainty of the ensemble is quite large.

scholarly journals Brief Communication: An update of the article "Modeling flood damages under climate change conditions – a case study for Germany"

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (12) ◽  
pp. 7231-7245
Author(s):  
F. F. Hattermann ◽  
S. Huang ◽  
O. Burghoff ◽  
P. Hoffmann ◽  
Z. W. Kundzewicz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Considerable Increase ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Flood Damages

Abstract. In our first study on possible flood damages under climate change in Germany, we reported that a considerable increase in flood related losses can be expected in future, warmer, climate. However, the general significance of the study was limited by the fact that outcome of only one Global Climate Model (GCM) was used as large scale climate driver, while many studies report that GCM models are often the largest source of uncertainty in impact modeling. Here we show that a much broader set of global and regional climate model combinations as climate driver shows trends which are in line with the original results and even give a stronger increase of damages.

Climate Change Explorer: Extracting localized data for developing Climate Services

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Nam ◽  
Bente Tiedje ◽  
Susanne Pfeifer ◽  
Diana Rechid ◽  
Daniel Eggert
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Heavy Precipitation ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Data Formats

<p>Everyone, politicians, public administrations, business owners, and citizens want to know how climate changes will affect them locally. Having such knowledge offers everyone the opportunity to make informed choices and take action towards mitigation and adaptation.</p><p> </p><p>In order to develop locally relevant climate service products and climate advisory services, as we do at GERICS, we must extract localized climate change information from Regional Climate Model ensemble simulations.</p><p> </p><p>Common challenges associated with developing such services include the transformation of petabytes of data from physical quantities such as precipitation, temperature, or wind, into user-applicable quantities such as return periods of heavy precipitation, e.g. for legislative or construction design frequency. Other challenges include the technical and physical barriers in the use and interpretation of climate data, due to large data volume, unfamiliar software and data formats, or limited technical infrastructure. The interpretation of climate data also requires scientific background knowledge, which limit or influence the interpretation of results.</p><p> </p><p>These barriers hinder the efficient and effective transformation of big data into user relevant information in a timely and reliable manner. To enable our society to adapt and become more resilient to climate change, we must overcome these barriers. In the Helmholtz funded Digital Earth project we are tackling these challenges by developing a Climate Change Workflow.</p><p> </p><p>In the scope of this Workflow, the user can <span>easily define a region of interest and extract </span><span>the</span><span> relevant </span><span>climate data </span><span>from the simulations available </span><span>at</span><span> the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). Following which, </span><span>a general overview of the projected changes, in precipitation </span><span>for example, for multiple climate projections is presented</span><span>. It conveys the bandwidth, </span><span>i.e. </span><span>the minimum/maximum range by an ensemble of regional climate model projections. </span><span>We implemented the sketched workflow in a web-based tool called </span><span>The Climate Change Explorer. </span><span>It</span> addresses barriers associated with extracting locally relevant climate data from petabytes of data, in unfamilar data formats, and deals with interpolation issues, using a more intuitive and user-friendly web interface.</p><p> </p><p>Ultimately, the Climate Change Explorer provides concise information on the magnitude of projected climate change and the range of these changes for individually defined regions, such as found in GERICS ‘Climate Fact Sheets’. This tool has the capacity to also improve other workflows of climate services, allowing them to dedicate more time in deriving user relevant climate indicies; enabling politicians, public administrations, and businesses to take action.</p>

scholarly journals Regional, Very Heavy Daily Precipitation in NARCCAP Simulations

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1212-1227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sho Kawazoe ◽  
William J. Gutowski
Keyword(s):  
Mississippi River ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Daily Precipitation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Heavy Precipitation ◽  
River Region ◽  
Precipitation Events

Abstract The authors analyze the ability of the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program's ensemble of climate models to simulate very heavy daily precipitation and its supporting processes, comparing simulations that used observation-based boundary conditions with observations. The analysis includes regional climate models and a time-slice global climate model that all used approximately half-degree resolution. Analysis focuses on an upper Mississippi River region for winter (December–February), when it is assumed that resolved synoptic circulation governs precipitation. All models generally reproduce the precipitation-versus-intensity spectrum seen in observations well, with a small tendency toward producing overly strong precipitation at high-intensity thresholds, such as the 95th, 99th, and 99.5th percentiles. Further analysis focuses on precipitation events exceeding the 99.5th percentile that occur simultaneously at several points in the region, yielding so-called “widespread events.” Examination of additional fields shows that the models produce very heavy precipitation events for the same physical conditions seen in the observations.

scholarly journals The ClimEx Project: A 50-Member Ensemble of Climate Change Projections at 12-km Resolution over Europe and Northeastern North America with the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5)

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 663-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Leduc ◽  
Alain Mailhot ◽  
Anne Frigon ◽  
Jean-Luc Martel ◽  
Ralf Ludwig ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North America ◽  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Change Projections ◽  
Canadian Regional Climate Model ◽  
Northeastern North America

AbstractThe Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5) Large Ensemble (CRCM5-LE) consists of a dynamically downscaled version of the CanESM2 50-member initial-conditions ensemble (CanESM2-LE). The downscaling was performed at 12-km resolution over two domains, Europe (EU) and northeastern North America (NNA), and the simulations extend from 1950 to 2099, following the RCP8.5 scenario. In terms of validation, warm biases are found over the EU and NNA domains during summer, whereas during winter cold and warm biases appear over EU and NNA, respectively. For precipitation, simulations are generally wetter than the observations but slight dry biases also occur in summer. Climate change projections for 2080–99 (relative to 2000–19) show temperature changes reaching 8°C in summer over some parts of Europe, and exceeding 12°C in northern Québec during winter. For precipitation, central Europe will become much dryer during summer (−2 mm day−1) and wetter during winter (>1.2 mm day−1). Similar changes are observed over NNA, although summer drying is not as prominent. Projected changes in temperature interannual variability were also investigated, generally showing increasing and decreasing variability during summer and winter, respectively. Temperature variability is found to increase by more than 70% in some parts of central Europe during summer and to increase by 80% in the northernmost part of Québec during the month of May as the snow cover becomes subject to high year-to-year variability in the future. Finally, CanESM2-LE and CRCM5-LE are compared with respect to extreme precipitation, showing evidence that the higher resolution of CRCM5-LE allows a more realistic representation of local extremes, especially over coastal and mountainous regions.

scholarly journals Impact of climate changes on water resources of Kuialnyk Liman catchment in scenario climate conditions

2017 ◽  
pp. 189-195
Author(s):  
N.S. Loboda ◽  
Y.V. Bozhok
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Surrounding Areas

The actuality of research is conditioned by necessity of water regime determination under climate change for substantiate management its water resources in future. The purpose of investigation is evaluation of changes in water resources of Kuyalnyk Liman catchment under climate change. The main method of research is model "climate- runoff ", developed at the Odessa State Environmental University. Database of global climate change scenarios A1B (realized in regional climate model REMO) and A2 (developed under the regional climate model RCA) was used. The analysis of fluctuation regularity of climatic factors of the flow formation on the Kuyalnyk  Liman catchment and surrounding areas according to selected scenarios using  difference-integral curves are done. Changes in precipitation and the maximum possible evaporation for the 30-year intervals up to the year 2100 (scenario A1D) or up to the year 2050 (scenario A2) are analyzed. The main tendencies in water resources of Kuyalnyk Liman using the model "climate- runoff" in the future are established. It is shown that according to the scenario A1B by the middle of XXI century possible reduction of water resources in the Kuyalnyk Liman catchment is 40%. According to the scenario A2 water resources in northern part of the basin can grow on average by 20-30%, and in the southern part runoff can be reduced on average by 10%.

scholarly journals Observations and Regional Climate Model Simulations of Heavy Precipitation Events and Seasonal Anomalies: A Comparison

2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 322-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth E. Kunkel ◽  
Karen Andsager ◽  
Xin-Zhong Liang ◽  
Raymond W. Arritt ◽  
Eugene S. Takle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Heavy Precipitation ◽  
Model Simulations ◽  
Climate Model Simulations ◽  
Precipitation Events

scholarly journals Systematic Modeling of Impacts of Land Use and Land Cover Changes on Regional Climate: A Review

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangzheng Deng ◽  
Chunhong Zhao ◽  
Haiming Yan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Land Cover Changes

There have been tremendous changes in the global land use pattern in the past 50 years, which has directly or indirectly exerted significant influence on the global climate change. Quantitative analysis for the impacts of land use and land cover changes (LUCC) on surface climate is one of the core scientific issues to quantitatively analyze the impacts of LUCC on the climate so as to scientifically understand the influence of human activities on the climate change. This paper comprehensively analyzed the primary scientific issues about the impacts of LUCC on the regional climate and reviewed the progress in relevant researches. Firstly, it introduced the influence mechanism of LUCC on the regional climate and reviewed the progress in the researches on the biogeophysical process and biogeochemical process. Then the model simulation of effects of LUCC on the regional climate was introduced, and the development from the global climate model to the regional climate model and the integration of the improved land surface model and the regional climate model were reviewed in detail. Finally, this paper discussed the application of the regional climate models in the development and management of agricultural land and urban land.

scholarly journals Long-term Variances of Heavy Precipitation across Central Europe using a Large Ensemble of Regional Climate Model Simulations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Ehmele ◽  
Lisa-Ann Kautz ◽  
Hendrik Feldmann ◽  
Joaquim G. Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Regional Climate Model ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Extreme Values ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Heavy Precipitation ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Observation Data ◽  
Large Ensemble

Abstract. Widespread flooding events are among the major natural hazards in Central Europe. Such events are usually related to intensive, long-lasting precipitation. Despite some prominent floods during the last three decades (e.g. 1997, 1999, 2002, and 2013), extreme floods are rare and associated with estimated long return periods of more than 100 years. To assess the associated risks of such extreme events, reliable statistics of precipitation and discharge are required. Comprehensive observations, however, are mainly available for the last 50–60 years or less. This shortcoming can be reduced using stochastic data sets. One possibility towards this aim is to consider climate model data or extended reanalyses. This study presents and discusses a validation of different century-long data sets, a large ensemble of decadal hindcasts, and also projections for the upcoming decade. Global reanalysis for the 20th century with a horizontal resolution of more than 100 km have been dynamically downscaled with a regional climate model (COSMO-CLM) towards a higher resolution of 25 km. The new data sets are first filtered using a dry-day adjustment. The simulations show a good agreement with observations for both statistical distributions and time series. Differences mainly appear in areas with sparse observation data. The temporal evolution during the past 60 years is well captured. The results reveal some long-term variability with phases of increased and decreased heavy precipitation. The overall trend varies between the investigation areas but is significant. The projections for the upcoming decade show ongoing tendencies with increased precipitation for upper percentiles. The presented RCM ensemble not only allows for more robust statistics in general, in particular it is suitable for a better estimation of extreme values.

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