Improved confidence in climate change projections of precipitation further evaluated using daily statistics from ENSEMBLES models

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Probability density functions for daily precipitation data are used as a validation tool comparing station measurements to seven transient regional climate model runs, with a horizontal resolution of 25 km and driven by the SRES A1B scenario forcing, within the ENSEMBLES project. The validation is performed for the control period 1961-1990 for eight predefined European subregions, and a ninth region enclosing all eight subregions, with different climate characteristics. Models that best match the observations are then used for making climate change projections of precipitation distributions during the twenty-first century for each subregion separately. We find, compared to the control period, a distinct decrease in the contribution to the total precipitation for days with moderate precipitation and a distinct increase for days with more intense precipitation. This change in contribution to the total precipitation is found to amplify with time during all of the twenty-first century with an average rate of 1.1% K-1. Furthermore, the crossover point separating the decreasing from the increasing contributions does not show any significant change with time for any specific subregion. These results are a confirmation and a specification of the results from a previous study using the same station measurements but with a regional climate model ensemble within the PRUDENCE project.

Original languageEnglish
JournalClimate Dynamics
Volume35
Issue number7
Pages (from-to)1509-1520
Number of pages12
ISSN0930-7575
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2010
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Climate change, Extreme events, Precipitation, Probability density function, Regional climate models

ID: 186940954