Evaluation of multiple downscaling tools for simulating extreme precipitation events over Southeastern South America: a case study approach

Solman, Silvina Alicia; Bettolli, María Laura; Doyle, Moira Evelina; Olmo, M. E.; Feijoó, Martín; Martinez, Daiana; Blazquez, Josefina; Huarte, R. Balmaceda

doi:10.1007/s00382-021-05770-4

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…On the other hand, the models and the observations show high consistency in increasing drought events in the NES region. All of the above align with previous studies (Almeida et al 2017 ; da Silva et al 2019 ; Olmo and Bettolli 2021 ; Solman et al 2021 ; Medeiros and Oliveira 2022 ).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Current and Future Climate Extremes Over Latin America and Caribbean: Assessing Earth System Models from High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP)

et al. 2022

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Extreme temperature and precipitation events are the primary triggers of hazards, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and landslides, with localized impacts. In this sense, the finer grids of Earth System models (ESMs) could play an essential role in better estimating extreme climate events. The performance of High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP) models is evaluated using the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI) over the 1981–2014 period and future changes (2021–2050) under Shared Socioeconomic Pathway SSP5–8.5, over ten regions in Latin America and the Caribbean. The impact of increasing the horizontal resolution in estimating extreme climate variability on a regional scale is first compared against reference gridded datasets, including reanalysis, satellite, and merging products. We used three different groups based on the resolution of the model’s grid (sg): (i) low (0.8° ≤ sg ≤ 1.87°), (ii) intermediate (0.5° ≤ sg ≤ 0.7°), and (iii) high (0.23° ≥ sg ≤ 0.35°). Our analysis indicates that there was no clear evidence to support the posit that increasing horizontal resolution improves model performance. The ECMWF-IFS family of models appears to be a plausible choice to represent climate extremes, followed by the ensemble mean of HighResMIP in their intermediate resolution. For future climate, the projections indicate a consensus of temperature and precipitation climate extremes increase across most of the ten regions. Despite the uncertainties presented in this study, climate models have been and will continue to be an important tool for assessing risk in the face of extreme events.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 91%

Current and Future Climate Extremes Over Latin America and Caribbean: Assessing Earth System Models from High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP)

et al. 2022

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“…However, some discrepancies among the REMO and RegCM ensembles were detected in areas like Amazonia and southeastern SA when considering ER as one of the extreme events involved in the CE occurrence (for HW + ER.s and DS + ER.s). Heavy rainfall is a complex phenomenon even for the high‐resolution modeling, especially in areas like southeastern SA, where the combination of multiple factors at different spatio‐temporal scales—such as mesoscale convective activity, frontal systems, the strengthening of the SALLJ and baroclinic instability conditions—strongly modulate the occurrence of these events (Lavín‐Gullón et al., 2021; Solman et al., 2021). Furthermore, the Amazon represents the largest tropical rainforest in the world—where land‐atmosphere interactions imply essential dynamical components of the climatic system—and precipitation variability is strongly affected by the Andes orographic effect, that interacts with regional atmospheric circulation, evidencing seasonal‐to‐intraseasonal circulation patterns (Espinoza et al., 2021; Sierra et al., 2021).…”

Section: Summary and Final Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compound Events in South America Using the CORDEX‐CORE Ensemble: Current Climate Conditions and Future Projections in a Global Warming Scenario

et al. 2022

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Climate hazards associated with compound events (CEs) have lately received increasing attention over South America (SA) due to their potential risks and amplification of impacts. This work addressed the evaluation of different temperature‐ and precipitation‐based CE in SA considering the CORDEX‐CORE ensemble of regional climate models (RCMs) and their driving earth system models (ESMs) in the reference period 1981–2010 and the late 21st century (2070–2099), for the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6 and 8.5 scenarios. The assessment focused on model performance for the individual events—heatwaves (HWs), Extreme rainfall (ER) days, and dry‐spells (DSs)—and their compound occurrence in terms of climatological frequency and duration. The spatial patterns of individual events were adequately reproduced by the RCMs, evidencing general overestimations in extreme precipitation intensities. In terms of CE, the frequencies of coincident HWs and DSs (sequential DSs and ER) were remarkable over central‐eastern Brazil and southern SA (southeastern SA). The main features of CE were generally well‐simulated by the RCMs, although they presented regional differences such as an underestimation of the maximum frequencies of these two CE in northeastern Brazil and southeastern SA, respectively. The high‐resolution information was generally in line with the larger‐scale driving ESMs. The climate change signal analysis generally showed robust future increases in CE frequency and duration in different areas of SA, as for coincident HWs and DSs (sequential DSs and ER) over northern SA and southern Brazil (southeastern SA). This was mostly consistent among the RCMs ensemble and notably strengthened in the worst‐case scenario (RCP 8.5).

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“…In the last decades, some studies have also analysed the uncertainties in the climate projections with a particular focus on South America (Bl azquez and Nuñez, 2013;Joetzjer et al, 2013;Torres and Marengo, 2013). In addition, some studies have analysed the projections of climate extremes events specifically for South America using the results of GCMs from CMIP3-6 (e.g., Marengo et al, 2010;Rusticucci et al, 2010;Natividade et al, 2017;Betts et al, 2018;Almazroui et al, 2021a) or derived from regional climate models or other downscaling methods (e.g., Boulanger et al, 2006Boulanger et al, , 2007Marengo et al, 2009Marengo et al, , 2013Mendes and Marengo, 2009;Valverde and Marengo, 2014;Bl azquez and Silvina, 2020;Avila-Diaz et al, 2020a, 2020bOlmo and Bettolli, 2021;Solman et al, 2021). However, in all the aforementioned studies, the approach to the uncertainties involved in the projection of climate extremes is still little discussed or analysed in depth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainties in projections of climate extremes indices in South America via Bayesian inference

Gouveia

Torres

Marengo

et al. 2022

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Historical simulations and projections of climate extremes indices of precipitation and temperature were analysed over South America until the end of the 21st century through 31 general circulation models (GCMs) under four Representative Concentration Pathways. Simulations were compared with reanalysis data, and a Bayesian inference method was used to assess the uncertainties involved in the multi-model climate projections. Regarding the precipitation extremes indices, the GCMs' simulations reasonably approached the reanalysis data, but with heterogeneous biases, both in sign and in the location of the highest values. The temperature extremes indices presented the smallest biases when compared to precipitation. Projections show a gradual growth of precipitation extremes events as the analysed radiative forcing scenario increases, both in magnitude and extent, over a large part of South America. Projections also indicate a decrease in cold days and nights and an increase in warm days and nights, more pronounced in the equatorial region. Bayesian inference method smoothed changes in precipitation extremes events, both in magnitude and extent, compared to the simple GCMs' ensemble mean. There was no considerable variation in the temperature indices when applying the Bayesian inference. Finally, the probability density functions resulted in a predominance of multimodal and wide curves for the precipitation indices, showing great uncertainties in the GCMs' results, differently from those for the temperature indices, where the GCMs presented good agreement represented through unimodal and narrow curves.

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Evaluation of multiple downscaling tools for simulating extreme precipitation events over Southeastern South America: a case study approach

Cited by 17 publications

References 76 publications

Current and Future Climate Extremes Over Latin America and Caribbean: Assessing Earth System Models from High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP)

Current and Future Climate Extremes Over Latin America and Caribbean: Assessing Earth System Models from High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP)

Compound Events in South America Using the CORDEX‐CORE Ensemble: Current Climate Conditions and Future Projections in a Global Warming Scenario

Uncertainties in projections of climate extremes indices in South America via Bayesian inference

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