Demory, Marie-Estelle and Berthou, Ségolène and Fernández, Jesús and Sørland, Silje L. and Brogli, Roman and Roberts, Malcolm J. and Beyerle, Urs and Seddon, Jon and Haarsma, Rein and Schär, Christoph and Buonomo, Erasmo and Christensen, Ole B. and Ciarlo ̀, James M. and Fealy, Rowan and Nikulin, Grigory and Peano, Daniele and Putrasahan, Dian and Roberts, Christopher D. and Senan, Retish and Steger, Christian and Teichmann, Claas and Vautard, Robert (2020) European daily precipitation according to EURO-CORDEX regional climate models (RCMs) and high-resolution global climate models (GCMs) from the High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP). Geoscientific Model Development, 13 (11). pp. 5485-5506. ISSN 1991-9603

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Abstract

In this study, we evaluate a set of high-resolution (25–50 km horizontal grid spacing) global climate models (GCMs) from the High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP), developed as part of the EU-funded PRIMAVERA (Process-based climate simulation: Advances in high resolution modelling and European climate risk assessment) project, and from the EURO-CORDEX (Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment) regional climate models (RCMs) (12–50 km horizontal grid spacing) over a European domain. It is the first time that an assessment of regional climate information using ensembles of both GCMs and RCMs at similar horizontal resolutions has been possible. The focus of the evaluation is on the distribution of daily precipitation at a 50 km scale under current climate conditions. Both the GCM and RCM ensembles are evaluated against high-quality gridded observations in terms of spatial resolution and station density. We show that both ensembles outperform GCMs from the 5th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), which cannot capture the regional-scale precipitation distribution properly because of their coarse resolutions. PRIMAVERA GCMs generally simulate precipitation distributions within the range of EURO-CORDEX RCMs. Both ensembles perform better in summer and autumn in most European regions but Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 5486 M.-E. Demory et al.: European daily precipitation in EURO-CORDEX RCMs and HighResMIP GCMs tend to overestimate precipitation in winter and spring. PRIMAVERA shows improvements in the latter by reducing moderate-precipitation rate biases over central and western Europe. The spatial distribution of mean precipitation is also improved in PRIMAVERA. Finally, heavy precipitation simulated by PRIMAVERA agrees better with observations in most regions and seasons, while CORDEX overestimates precipitation extremes. However, uncertainty exists in the observations due to a potential under catch error, especially during heavy-precipitation events. The analyses also confirm previous findings that, although the spatial representation of precipitation is improved, the effect of increasing resolution from 50 to 12 km horizontal grid spacing in EURO-CORDEX daily precipitation distributions is, in comparison, small in most regions and seasons outside mountainous regions and coastal regions. Our results show that both high-resolution GCMs and CORDEX RCMs provide adequate information to end users at a 50 km scale

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Cite as: Demory, Marie-Estelle, et al. "European daily precipitation according to EURO-CORDEX regional climate models (RCMs) and high-resolution global climate models (GCMs) from the High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP)." Geoscientific Model Development, vol. 13, no. 11, 11 Nov. 2020, p. 5485. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A641242036/AONE?u=nuim&sid=summon&xid=dc867bde. Accessed 31 Mar. 2022.
Keywords:	global climate models; PRIMAVERA; Model Intercomparison Project
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > National Centre for Geocomputation, NCG Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, ICARUS Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute, MUSSI
Item ID:	15761
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-5485-2020
Depositing User:	Rowan Fealy
Date Deposited:	31 Mar 2022 11:41
Journal or Publication Title:	Geoscientific Model Development
Publisher:	Copernicus Publications
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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