Uncertainty in surface wind speed projections over the Iberian Peninsula: CMIP6 GCMs versus a WRF‐RCM

Abstract

This study assessed the projected near‐surface wind speed (SWS) changes and variability over the Iberian Peninsula for the 21st century. Here, we compared Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 global climate models (GCMs) with a higher spatial resolution regional climate model (RCM; ∼20 km), known as WRF‐CESM2, which was created by a dynamic downscaling of the Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2) using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Our analysis found that the GCMs tended to overestimate observed SWS for 1985–2014, while the higher spatial resolution of the WRF‐CESM2 did not improve the accuracy and underestimated the SWS magnitude. GCMs project a decline of SWS under high shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) greenhouse concentrations, such as SSP370 and SSP585, while an interdecadal oscillation appears in SSP126 and SSP245 for the end of the century. The WRF‐CESM2 under SSP585 predicts the opposite increasing SWS. Our results suggest that 21st‐century projections of SWS are uncertain even for regionalized products and should be taken with caution.

Increases of Offshore Wind Potential in a Warming World

“…CMIP6 models are considered more realistic in simulating historical wind energy resources compared to CMIP5 models (Carvalho et al, 2021). Although most models can reasonably reproduce the observed climatology of near-surface wind speed (NSWS), they fail to capture the longterm trend (Andres-Martin et al, 2023). Shen et al (2022) found that CMIP6 models cannot reproduce the observed trend of terrestrial NSWS, while there are no studies that have investigated if the CMIP5/CMIP6 models can reproduce the global offshore NSWS trend as far as we know.…”