Enhanced summer convective rainfall at Alpine high elevations in response to climate warming

Giorgi, Filippo; Torma, Csaba; Coppola, Erika; Ban, Nikolina; Schär, Christoph; Somot, Samuel

doi:10.1038/ngeo2761

Cited by 244 publications

(233 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…In the context of climate change, Jacob et al (2013) show that future climate projections performed by high-resolution (12.5 km) scenario under the Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 and 8.5 (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively) project higher daily precipitation intensities than GCMs, in particular for RCP8.5. These results are consistent with the conclusions of Giorgi et al (2016) over the Alps. Even though both GCM and RCM scenario experiments project a reduction of summer precipitation over the Alps, increased convective rainfall due to enhanced potential instability related to a finer representation of the orography over the Alps is found in RCMs.…”

supporting

confidence: 82%

Evaluation of uncertainties in mean and extreme precipitation under climate change for northwestern Mediterranean watersheds from high-resolution Med and Euro-CORDEX ensembles

Colmet-Daage

Sánchez-Gómez

Ricci

et al. 2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The climate change impact on mean and extreme precipitation events in the northern Mediterranean region is assessed using high-resolution EuroCORDEX and Med-CORDEX simulations. The focus is made on three regions, Lez and Aude located in France, and Muga located in northeastern Spain, and eight pairs of global and regional climate models are analyzed with respect to the SAFRAN product. First the model skills are evaluated in terms of bias for the precipitation annual cycle over historical period. Then future changes in extreme precipitation, under two emission scenarios, are estimated through the computation of past/future change coefficients of quantile-ranked model precipitation outputs. Over the 1981-2010 period, the cumulative precipitation is overestimated for most models over the mountainous regions and underestimated over the coastal regions in autumn and higher-order quantile. The ensemble mean and the spread for future period remain unchanged under RCP4.5 scenario and decrease under RCP8.5 scenario. Extreme precipitation events are intensified over the three catchments with a smaller ensemble spread under RCP8.5 revealing more evident changes, especially in the later part of the 21st century.

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supporting

confidence: 82%

Evaluation of uncertainties in mean and extreme precipitation under climate change for northwestern Mediterranean watersheds from high-resolution Med and Euro-CORDEX ensembles

Colmet-Daage

Sánchez-Gómez

Ricci

et al. 2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…For example, convective rain has shown a positive trend in all seasons in the Czech Republic [79] and is expected to increase under climate change scenarios [80]. For Switzerland, there is an increase in the annual occurrence of convective weather types [81] and summer convective rain at high elevations [82]. The proportion of convective rain at elevated altitudes is expected to be higher in the future [83].…”

Section: Rain Type Classificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rain Microstructure Parameters Vary with Large-Scale Weather Conditions in Lausanne, Switzerland

et al. 2018

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Rain properties vary spatially and temporally for several reasons. In particular, rain types (convective and stratiform) affect the rain drop size distribution (DSD). It has also been established that local weather conditions are influenced by large-scale circulations. However, the effect of these circulations on rain microstructures has not been sufficiently addressed. Based on DSD measurements from 16 disdrometers located in Lausanne, Switzerland, we present evidence that rain DSD differs among general weather patterns (GWLs). GWLs were successfully linked to significant variations in the rain microstructure characterized by the most important rain properties: rain intensity (R), mass weighted rain drop diameter (D m ), and rain drop concentration (N), as well as Z = AR b parameters. Our results highlight the potential to improve radar-based estimations of rain intensity, which is crucial for several hydrological and environmental applications.

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“…We hence exclusively focus on the higher-resolved EUR-11 simulations and disregard the coarser EUR-44 ensemble due to the apparent added value of the EUR-11 ensemble with respect to regional-scale climate features in the complex topographic setting of the European Alps (e.g. Giorgi et al, 2016;Torma et al, 2015). Out of the entire set of available EURO-CORDEX simulations, several GCM-RCM chains were either completely or partially removed from our analysis, resulting in a full set of 14 GCM-RCM combinations and a reduced set of 12 combinations only (Table 1).…”

Section: Climate Model Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Future snowfall in the Alps: projections based on the EURO-CORDEX regional climate models

et al. 2018

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Abstract. Twenty-first century snowfall changes over the European Alps are assessed based on high-resolution regional climate model (RCM) data made available through the EURO-CORDEX initiative. Fourteen different combinations of global and regional climate models with a target resolution of 12 km and two different emission scenarios are considered. As raw snowfall amounts are not provided by all RCMs, a newly developed method to separate snowfall from total precipitation based on near-surface temperature conditions and accounting for subgrid-scale topographic variability is employed. The evaluation of the simulated snowfall amounts against an observation-based reference indicates the ability of RCMs to capture the main characteristics of the snowfall seasonal cycle and its elevation dependency but also reveals considerable positive biases especially at high elevations. These biases can partly be removed by the application of a dedicated RCM bias adjustment that separately considers temperature and precipitation biases.Snowfall projections reveal a robust signal of decreasing snowfall amounts over most parts of the Alps for both emission scenarios. Domain and multi-model mean decreases in mean September-May snowfall by the end of the century amount to −25 and −45 % for representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. Snowfall in low-lying areas in the Alpine forelands could be reduced by more than −80 %. These decreases are driven by the projected warming and are strongly connected to an important decrease in snowfall frequency and snowfall fraction and are also apparent for heavy snowfall events. In contrast, high-elevation regions could experience slight snowfall increases in midwinter for both emission scenarios despite the general decrease in the snowfall fraction. These increases in mean and heavy snowfall can be explained by a general increase in winter precipitation and by the fact that, with increasing temperatures, climatologically cold areas are shifted into a temperature interval which favours higher snowfall intensities. In general, percentage changes in snowfall indices are robust with respect to the RCM postprocessing strategy employed: similar results are obtained for raw, separated, and separated-bias-adjusted snowfall amounts. Absolute changes, however, can differ among these three methods.

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Enhanced summer convective rainfall at Alpine high elevations in response to climate warming

Cited by 244 publications

References 32 publications

Evaluation of uncertainties in mean and extreme precipitation under climate change for northwestern Mediterranean watersheds from high-resolution Med and Euro-CORDEX ensembles

Evaluation of uncertainties in mean and extreme precipitation under climate change for northwestern Mediterranean watersheds from high-resolution Med and Euro-CORDEX ensembles

Rain Microstructure Parameters Vary with Large-Scale Weather Conditions in Lausanne, Switzerland

Future snowfall in the Alps: projections based on the EURO-CORDEX regional climate models

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