Can high-resolution GCMs reach the level of information provided by 12–50 km CORDEX RCMs in terms of daily precipitation distribution?

Demory, Marie-Estelle; Berthou, Ségolène; Sørland, Silje Lund; Roberts, Malcolm; Beyerle, Urs; Seddon, Jon; Haarsma, Rein; Schär, Christoph; Christensen, Ole; Fealy, Rowan; Fernández, Jesús Fernández; Nikulin, Grigory; Peano, Daniele; Putrasahan, Dian; Roberts, Christopher D.; Steger, Christian; Teichmann, Claas; Vautard, Robert

doi:10.5194/gmd-2019-370

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…In addition, the importance of the resolution of climate models to simulate spatial and temporal mean regional climate change in specific regions could be further elucidated when comparing high-resolution GCMs with RCMs, including analysing the influence of the better resolved large scale forcing. This was to some extent done in a study over Europe and could possibly be extended over some of the regions investigated in this study (Demory et al 2020). Also, in the case of the low radiative forcing of the RCP2.6 scenario, the RCMs follow the CCS of the driving CORDEX-CORE GCMs quite closely.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Assessing mean climate change signals in the global CORDEX-CORE ensemble

et al. 2020

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The new Coordinated Output for Regional Evaluations (CORDEX-CORE) ensemble provides high-resolution, consistent regional climate change projections for the major inhabited areas of the world. It serves as a solid scientific basis for further research related to vulnerability, impact, adaptation and climate services in addition to existing CORDEX simulations. The aim of this study is to investigate and document the climate change information provided by the CORDEX-CORE simulation ensemble, as a part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) CORDEX community. An overview of the annual and monthly mean climate change information in selected regions in different CORDEX domains is presented for temperature and precipitation, providing the foundation for detailed follow-up studies and applications. Initially, two regional climate models (RCMs), REMO and RegCM were used to downscale global climate model output. The driving simulations by AR5 global climate models (AR5-GCMs) were selected to cover the spread of high, medium, and low equilibrium climate sensitivity at a global scale. The CORDEX-CORE ensemble has doubled the spatial resolution compared to the previously existing CORDEX simulations in most of the regions (25$$\,\mathrm {km}$$ km (0.22$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ ) versus 50$$\,\mathrm {km}$$ km (0.44$$^{\circ }$$ ∘ )) leading to a potentially improved representation of, e.g., physical processes in the RCMs. The analysis focuses on changes in the IPCC physical climate reference regions. The results show a general reasonable representation of the spread of the temperature and precipitation climate change signals of the AR5-GCMs by the CORDEX-CORE simulations in the investigated regions in all CORDEX domains by mostly covering the AR5 interquartile range of climate change signals. The simulated CORDEX-CORE monthly climate change signals mostly follow the AR5-GCMs, although for specific regions they show a different change in the course of the year compared to the AR5-GCMs, especially for RCP8.5, which needs to be investigated further in region specific process studies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Assessing mean climate change signals in the global CORDEX-CORE ensemble

et al. 2020

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“…However, we cannot reach this conclusion based solely on this analysis, since we examine only a single model, which may not be representative of other models, and because the range of resolutions considered may be too narrow. Demory et al (2020) and Strandberg and Lind (2020) found that PRIMAVERA GCM simulations and EURO-CORDEX simulations at comparable resolution simulated fairly similar precipitation frequency-intensity distributions, which would agree with a limited influence of upscaling. However, a number of studies do find improvements in the large-scale circulation with resolution, including for extratropical cyclones and storm tracks (Colle et al, 2013;Jung et al, 2006Jung et al, , 2012Zappa et al, 2013), Euro-Atlantic weather regimes (Dawson et al, 2012(Dawson et al, , 2018Cattiaux et al, 2013;Strommen et al, 2019;Fabiano et al, 2020), and blocking (Jung et al, 2012;Anstey et al, 2013;Matsueda et al, 2009, Berckmans et al 2013Schiemann et al, 2017Schiemann et al, , 2020Davini et al 2017a, b;Dawson and Palmer, 2020; see also Introduction).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

“…In GCMs, global precipitation tends to increase with resolution, and for grid point GCMs (as opposed to spectral GCMs) the fraction of land precipitation and moisture fluxes from land to ocean increases, largely due to better resolved orography (Vannière et al, 2019;Terai et al, 2018;Demory et al, 2014). Precipitation extremes tend to get heavier and in some studies agree better with observational estimates with increased resolution (Wehner et al, 2010;O'Brien et al, 2016;Kopparla et al, 2013;Shields et al, 2016;Vannière et al, 2019;Demory et al, 2020;Strandberg and Lind, 2020), unless the parameterization schemes are not suited to the resolution (e.g. Wehner et al, 2014, andpossibly Bador et al, 2020, who found worse performance in higher-resolution versions of multiple GCMs whose parameterizations were not retuned at higher resolution, particularly in the tropics).…”

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confidence: 93%

“…Such studies find an improvement in the representation of various aspects of Northern Hemisphere extratropical cyclones with increased resolution, including frequency, intensity, and the position of storm tracks (Colle et al, 2013;Jung et al, 2006Jung et al, , 2012, even in the higherresolution CMIP5 models (∼ < 130 km; Zappa et al, 2013). de Vries et al (2019) found that the resolution of Atlantic Gulf Stream sea surface temperature (SST) fronts affects winter extratropical cyclone strength. Gao et al (2020) found that explosively intensifying "bomb" extratropical cyclones are more frequent and associated with stronger winds in higher-resolution GCMs.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The benefits of increasing resolution in global and regional climate simulations for European climate extremes

et al. 2020

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Abstract. Many climate extremes, including heatwaves and heavy precipitation events, are projected to worsen under climate change, with important impacts for society. Future projections required for adaptation are often based on climate model simulations. Given finite resources, trade-offs must be made concerning model resolution, ensemble size, and level of model complexity. Here we focus on the resolution component. A given resolution can be achieved over a region using either global climate models (GCMs) or at lower cost using regional climate models (RCMs) that dynamically downscale coarser GCMs. Both approaches to increasing resolution may better capture small-scale processes and features (downscaling effect), but increased GCM resolution may also improve the representation of the large-scale atmospheric circulation (upscaling effect). The size of this upscaling effect is therefore important for deciding modelling strategies. Here we evaluate the benefits of increased model resolution for both global and regional climate models for simulating temperature, precipitation, and wind extremes over Europe at resolutions that could currently be realistically used for coordinated sets of climate projections at the pan-European scale. First we examine the benefits of regional downscaling by comparing EURO-CORDEX simulations at 12.5 and 50 km resolution to their coarser CMIP5 driving simulations. Secondly, we compare global-scale HadGEM3-A simulations at three resolutions (130, 60, and 25 km). Finally, we separate out resolution-dependent differences for HadGEM3-A into downscaling and upscaling components using a circulation analogue technique. Results suggest limited benefits of increased resolution for heatwaves, except in reducing hot biases over mountainous regions. Precipitation extremes are sensitive to resolution, particularly over complex orography, with larger totals and heavier tails of the distribution at higher resolution, particularly in the CORDEX vs. CMIP5 analysis. CMIP5 models underestimate precipitation extremes, whilst CORDEX simulations overestimate compared to E-OBS, particularly at 12.5 km, but results are sensitive to the observational dataset used, with the MESAN reanalysis giving higher totals and heavier tails than E-OBS. Wind extremes are somewhat stronger and heavier tailed at higher resolution, except in coastal regions where large coastal grid boxes spread strong ocean winds further over land. The circulation analogue analysis suggests that differences with resolution for the HadGEM3-A GCM are primarily due to downscaling effects.

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“…Through dynamical and empirical-statistical downscaling more detailed simulations at the European level are provided, although depending on the boundary conditions of low resolution global climate models. In the evaluation of precipitation by Demory et al (2020) the high-resolution global climate simulations (25-50 km) from PRIMAVERA are compared to the CORDEX regional climate simulations (12-50 km) over Europe. The effect of increasing resolution from 50 km to 12 km is small outside mountainous and coastal regions (Demory et al, 2020).…”

Section: Atmospherementioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric moisture transport and river runoff in the mid-latitudes

Benedict

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Hydrometeorological extremes such as floods and droughts are the result of anomalous transport of water in the atmosphere, impacting the land. Recent examples are the devastating floods in southern Louisiana (United States) in 2016 and drought over Western Europe in 2018. In this thesis the water cycle and its extremes are investigated for the mid-latitudes, on various temporal and spatial scales, encompassing climate science, meteorology and hydrology. The main focus is on the Rhine and Mississippi river basins, two socially, economically and ecologically relevant study areas. From a scientific point of view, studying their different climatic drivers provides insight in different transport mechanisms, and the ability to simulate those. Additionally, anomalous moisture transport associated to extreme precipitation over the coast of Norway is studied. In the

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Can high-resolution GCMs reach the level of information provided by 12–50 km CORDEX RCMs in terms of daily precipitation distribution?

Cited by 9 publications

References 47 publications

Assessing mean climate change signals in the global CORDEX-CORE ensemble

Assessing mean climate change signals in the global CORDEX-CORE ensemble

The benefits of increasing resolution in global and regional climate simulations for European climate extremes

Atmospheric moisture transport and river runoff in the mid-latitudes

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