Changes in average and extreme precipitation in two regional climate model experiments | Tellus (original) (raw)

Changes in average and extreme precipitation in two regional climate model experiments

Original Research Papers

• Jouni Räisänen
• Rune Joelsson

Abstract

Two regional climate model experiments for northern and central Europe are studied focussingon greenhouse gas-induced changes in heavy precipitation. The average yearly maximum onedayprecipitation _P_max shows a general increase in the whole model domain in both experiments, although the mean precipitation _P_mean decreases in the southern part of the area, especially inone of the experiments. The average yearly maximum six-hour precipitation increases evenmore than the one-day Pmax, suggesting a decrease in the timescale of heavy precipitation. Thecontrast between the _P_mean and _P_max changes in the southern part of the domain and the lackof such a contrast further north are affected by changes in wet-day frequency that stem, at leastin part, from changes in atmospheric circulation. However, the yearly extremes of precipitationexhibit a larger percentage increase than the average wet-day precipitation. The signal-to-noiseaspects of the model results are also studied in some detail. The 44 km grid-box-scale changesin _P_max are very heavily affected by inter-annual variability, with an estimated standard errorof about 20% for the 10-year mean changes. However, the noise in _P_max decreases sharplytoward larger horizontal scales, and large-area mean changes in _P_max can be estimated withsimilar accuracy to those in _P_mean. Although a horizontal averaging of model results smoothsout the small-scale details in the true climate change signal as well, this disadvantage is, in thecase of _P_max changes, much smaller than the advantage of reduced noise.

Submitted on Sep 15, 2022

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