Abstractbook oral table of contents - icrc-cordex2016.org · (ICRC)CORDEX!2016) ,!tobe!heldin ......

The International Conference on Regional Climate-CORDEX 2016 (ICRC-CORDEX 2016), to be held in Stockholm 17th-20th May 2016, will bring together the international regional climate research community, focusing on high resolution climate information and its applications to vulnerability, impacts and adaptation and the full spectrum of potential end users of regional climate information. It will promote the CORDEX vision to advance and coordinate the science and application of regional climate downscaling through global partnerships.

Orals - Table of contents NAME Abstract Title Day/time Page AKPEROV MIRSEID

Cyclone activity in the Arctic from an ensemble of regional climate models (Arctic CORDEX)

Thursday 19 May - 11:45-12:00

LXXII

ARGUESO DANIEL

Does convection-permitting resolution improve simulated precipitation in the Maritime Continent?

Wednesday 18 May - 14:30-14:45

XXXVII

ARRITT RAYMOND

Extreme precipitation in an ensemble of regional climate models

Thursday 19 May - 11:30-11:45

LXXI

BELDA MICHAL

Urban climate - air quality interactions in regional scale over Central Europe


XLIX

BENESTAD RASMUS

PCA-based strategy to represent stations for emprirical-statistical downscaling.


LIX

BETTOLLI MARIA

Statistical downscaling of daily precipitation in the Argentine Pampas region


LXI

BONANNO RICCARDO

Changes in heavy precipitation events over Mediterranean Basin

Thursday 19 May - 10:45-11:00

LXVIII

BRAUCH JENNIFER

Simulation of snow bands in the Baltic Sea area with the coupled atmosphere-ocean-ice model COSMO-CLM/NEMO-Nordic

Thursday 20 - 10:45-11:00

LXXVII

BUCCHIGNANI EDOARDO

Estimation of sensitivity and added value of climate simulations for the Israeli region using COSMO-CLM with three nested domains


XL

BUKOVSKY MELISSA

NA-CORDEX Simulation Assessment for the North American Monsoon


XVI

CABOS WILLIAM

The role of internal and external variability in the simulated Caribbean climate


XXIII

CASANUEVA ANA

Added value of high resolution RCM simulations and comparison with Statistical Downscaling Methods within the EURO-CORDEX framework


XVII

CASSANO JOHN

Simulation of the Arctic climate system with the Regional Arctic System Model (RASM): Sensitivity to atmospheric processes


XXV

CHEN CHENG-TA

Is There an Added Value from Regional Climate Modeling for Projected Change in Future Northwest Pacific Tropical Cyclone Activities?


XV

CHENEKA BEDASSA REGASSA

Searching for an Added Value of Precipitation in Downscaled Seasonal Hindcasts over East Africa: COSMO-CLM Forced by MPI-ESM


XIII

CHRISTENSEN OLE

HIRHAM5: A Regional Coupled Model System to Examine Ocean-Atmosphere-Sea Ice, Ice Sheet and Permafrost Interactions in the Arctic


XIX

COPPOLA ERIKA

Assessment of multiple daily precipitation statistics in ERA-Interim driven Med-CORDEX and EURO-CORDEX experiments against high resolution observations

Tuesday 17 May - 16:00-16:15

V

DAIRAKU KOJI

High resolution probabilistic regional climate projection using a regression method with multi-model ensemble


LVIII

DARON JOE

Visual Summaries of Ensemble Regional Projections Wednesday 18 May - 10:45-11:00

XXXI

DAS LALU

Selection of suitable predictors and predictor domain for statistical downscaling: A case study over the Western Himalayan region of India


LVI

DE LA CRUZ GUSTAVO

Future precipitation in central Andes of Peru Wednesday 18 May - 16:00-16:15

LX

DEQUE MICHEL

Extreme rainfall in South East France: convection resolving simulation versus EuroCordex approach


XXXVIII

DI LUCA ALEJANDRO

Quantifying the overall added value of dynamical downscaling and the contribution from different spatial scales


XI

DIACONESCU EMILIA PAULA

Daily precipitation extremes over Northern Canada estimated from Arctic and North-America CORDEX simulations and reanalysis

Thursday 19 May - 09:30-09:45

LXV

DROBINSKI PHILIPPE

Scaling of precipitation extremes with temperature in the Mediterranean: past climate assessment and projection in anthropogenic scenarios

Thursday 19 May - 09:45-10:00

LXVI

EKSTRM MARIE

Estimating change in future streamflow based on a limited sample of different downscaling products

Thursday 19 May - 09:00-09:30

LXXXII

ENGELBRECHT FRANCOIS

The Variable-resolution Earth System Model and its simulations of the Benguela upwelling system


XXI

ESSERY RICHARD

Observations and downscaling for alpine hydrological modelling

Thursday 19 May - 11:15-11:30

LXXXVIII

FABIEN SOLMON

Regional climate-chemistry simulations over the med-cordex domain


LII

FERNANDEZ JESUS

The Multi-MIP regional distillation dilema. Results from the Spanish PNACC-2012 Program


XXXIV

FUENTES FRANCO RAMON

Assessment of the Regional Climate Earth System Model (RegESM) simulation in reproducing observed climatic features of the atmosphere over the CORDEX Central America domain


XXII

GAMAL ABD EL-MOTEY GAMIL

Impacts of land use change and horizontal resolution in local climate by RegCM4 model


L

GHIMIRE SHRETA

Assessment of the performance of CORDEX-South Asia experiments for monsoonal precipitation over the Himalayan region during present climate: part I

Tuesday 17 May - 16:45-17:00

VIII

GIORGI FILIPPO

A fine scale topographical modulation of summer precipitation change over the European Alps challenging current GCM projections.


XIV

GUTIERREZ ESCRIBANO CLAUDIA

MULTIMODEL ANALYSIS OF SOLAR RADIATION OVER IBERIAN PENINSULA FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY PURPOSES

Thursday 19 May - 09:30-09:45

LXXIV

GUTMANN ETHAN

High Resolution Climate Modeling of the Water Cycle over the Contiguous United States Including Potential Climate Change Scenarios


XLIV

HALSNS KIRSTEN

From regional climate scenarios to economics: identifying uncertainties and risks in the adaptation modelling chain


XXVII

HAMDI RAFIQ

Future climate of Brussels and Paris for the 2050s under the A1B scenario


XLVII

HEMPELMANN NILS

From (big)data to information visualization with birdhouse: a collection of Web Processing Services


XXX

KATZFEY JACK

High-resolution (10km) ensemble regional climate projections for SE Asia


XXVIII

KJELLSTRM ERIK

Production and use of CORDEX projections a Swedish perspective on building climate services in practice

Tuesday 17 May - 16:30-16:45

VII

KNIST SEBASTIAN

Added value and land-atmosphere coupling in convection-permitting WRF climate simulations over a Middle European domain


XXXIX

KREIENKAMP FRANK

Results from a downscaled Multi-GCM-Ensemble using the ESD-method EPISODES


LXII

LAPRISE RENE

Challenges in the quest for added value of climate dynamical downscaling: Evidence of added value in North American regional climate model simulations with increasing horizontal resolutions.


IX

LARSEN MORTEN ANDREAS DAHL

Preparing for fully coupled climate-hydrological modelling in data-sparse regions applied over the Crati River catchment in Southern Italy

Thursday 19 May - 10:00-10:15

LXXXV

LENNARD CHRISTOPHER

CORDEX-Africa Integrating climate and impact science for policy

Tuesday 17 May - 16:15-16:30

VI

LISZEWSKA MALGORZATA

Climate change scenarios for low carbon agriculture in Poland based on EURO-CORDEX (EUR-11) simulations


LVII

LLOPART MARTA

The role of land use change over Amazon Forest in simulating climatology and extreme hydroclimatic indices


XLVIII

MARAUN DOUGLAS

VALUE perfect predictor validation results, part 2: spatial, multivariate and process-based aspects


LV

MEARNS LINDA

An Overview of Climate Projections Performed for North America CORDEX

Tuesday 17 May - 14:30-15:00

II

MEIER MARKUS

Estimating uncertainties in projections for the Baltic Sea region based upon an ensemble of regional climate system models

Thursday 19 May - 11:00-11:15

LXXVIII

MISRA VASU

Regional coupled ocean-atmosphere simulation of the Indian Monsoon


XXVI

MONTAVEZ JUAN PEDRO

The impact of climate change on photovoltaic power generation in Europe

Tuesday 17 May - 15:45-16:00

IV

MTONGORI HABIBA

Parallel Session A3: From data to information: a distillation dilemma, Parallel Session B3: A focus on ESD specific opportunities


XXXV

NIKIEMA PINGHOUINDE MICHEL

Multimodel CMIP5 and CORDEX simulations of Historical Summer Temperature and Precipitation Variabilities over West Africa


XII

NIKULIN GRIGORY

CORDEX achiving: achievements, status and perspectives Tuesday 17 May - 14:00-14:30

I

NISHIMORI MOTOKI

On the bias correction for regression-based ESD result for multi agro-meteorological elements over Japan and their comparing with RCMs results


LXIII

OBERMANN ANIKA

Mistral and Tramontane in MedCORDEX Simulations: Present Day and Future Climate

Thursday 19 May - 11:15-11:30

LXXIX

PAQUIN DOMINIQUE

Who should adapt to climate change? A tale of multiple timescales.


XXIX

PARK CHANGYONG

Multi-RCM Future Projections of Climate Extremes over East Asia

Thursday 19 May - 11:00-11:15

LXIX

PINTO IZIDINE

Future changes in extreme rainfall events and circulation patterns over southern Africa

Thursday 19 May - 11:15-11:30

LXX

PREIN ANDREAS

Impacts of uncertainties in European gridded precipitation observations on regional climate analysis


XXXVI

PREUSCHMANN SWANTJE

The IMPACT2C web-atlas Wednesday 18 May - 11:00-11:15

XXXII

PRYOR SARA C.

Can/will climate change impact the wind energy industry? Thursday 19 May - 09:00-09:30

LXXIII

RASOULI KABIR

Precipitation downscaling using the Intermediate Complexity Atmospheric Research model (ICAR) in Western Canada

Thursday 19 May - 09:30-09:45

LXXXIII

RECHID DIANA

EURO-CORDEX-LUC: A new initiative on coordinated regional land use change experiments


XLV

REMEDIO ARMELLE RECA

Influence of ocean and atmosphere coupling in a regional climate simulation over the CORDEX Southeast Asia domain


XX

REMKE THOMAS

Towards the assessment of climate change impacts on critical energy infrastructure applied for offshore wind farms

Thursday 19 May - 11:30-11:45

LXXX

SANNINO GIANMARIA

Inter-annual variability of the modelled Mediterranean thermohaline circulation in Med-CORDEX simulations and the role of tidal forcing

Thursday 19 May - 09:45-10:00

LXXV

SCHR CHRISTOPH

European-Scale Convection-Resolving Climate Modeling Wednesday 18 May - 16:30-16:45

XLIII

SCHWITALLA THOMAS

Convection permitting latitude belt simulation using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model


XLII

SHARMA TARUL

Understanding the propagation of uncertainties in CORDEX and GCM derived hydro-climatic projections

Thursday 19 May - 11:00-11:15

LXXXVII

SILLMAN JAANA

Assessing Climate Extremes across Scales from Global to Regional Climate Modeling

Thursday 19 May - 09:00-09:30

LXIV

SILVA YAMINA High resolution modeling to understand the physical processes relating to rainfall in the Mantaro basin (central Peruvian Andes) using WRF


XLI

SOARES PEDRO M.M

The Summer Iberian Coastal Low-Level Wind Jet in a Warming Climate

Thursday 19 May - 10:00-10:15

LXXVI

SOBOLOWSKI STEFAN

Precipitation seasonality, variability and associated dynamical processes over eastern Africa

Thursday 19 May - 11:45-12:00

LXXXI

SOLMAN SILVINA

Evidence of added value in North American regional climate model simulations with increasing horizontal resolutions.


X

SOMOT SAMUEL

How can high-resolution representation of the regional seas and aerosols modify regional climate change ? A fully-coupled regional climate system approach to question current CORDEX experimental protocol


XVIII

SORENSSON ANNA

Spatio-temporal analysis of the coupling between soil moisture and surface climate in the La Plata Basin: combining results from regional climate models and satellites

Thursday 19 May - 11:30-11:45

LXXXIX

STRANDBERG GUSTAV

Biogeophysical effects from land-cover changes in Europe Wednesday 18 May - 16:30-16:45

LIII

SYLLA MOUHAMADOU BAMBA

CMIP5, CORDEX and higher resolution RegCM4 multimodel ensembles comparison of projected changes in climate zones over West Africa

Wednesday 18 May 11:15-11:30

XXXIII

TANGANG FREDOLIN

Evaluation of Two Land Surface Schemes (BATS1se vs CLM4.5) in the simulation of the Southeast Asia Precipitation using RegCM4

Thursday 19 May - 11:45-12:00

XC

TEICHMANN CLAAS

High-resolution climate change simulations within EURO-CORDEX: Assessing extremes in the RCP2.6 low emission scenario

Thursday 19 May - 10:00-10:15

LXVII

TERMONIA PIET

CORDEX.be: COmbining Regional climate Downscaling EXpertise in Belgium

Tuesday 17 May - 15:00-15:15

III

TIMBAL BERTRAND

Impact of climate change on streamflow across Victoria: making use of statistical downscaling

Thursday 19 May - 09:45-10:00

LXXXIV

VERFAILLIE DEBORAH

A downscaling and bias-correction approach for climate projections of snow conditions in mountain regions using energy balance land surface models

Thursday 19 May - 10:45-11:00

LXXXVI

WARRACH-SAGI KIRSTEN

An Integrated Land System Model System to study soil-vegetation-atmosphere feedbacks in agricultural landscapes under climate change


LI

WU MINCHAO WU

Vegetation -climate feedbacks modulate rainfall patterns in Africa under future radiative forcing


XXIV

ZHAO TIANBAO

Contributions of anthropogenic and external natural forcings to climate changes over China based on CMIP5 model simulations


LIV

PLENARY SESSION 1: CORDEX IN ACTION: ACHIEVEMENTS & LESSONS LEARNED

I

TUESDAY 17TH MAY 2016 14:00

CORDEX achiving: achievements, status and perspectives

Grigory NIKULIN


II


An Overview of Climate Projections Performed for North America CORDEX

Linda MEARNS

National Center for Atmospheric Research - United States

The North American CORDEX program (NA-CORDEX) has produced a good number of projections of climate according to the first phase of the CORDEX program. These simulations are based on a wide range of regional and global climate models, and some matrices of combinations have resulted. The RCMs involved include: WRF, CanRCM4, CRCM5, RegCM4, RCA4, and HirHam5. Driving GCMs include: EC-EARTH, CanESM2, HadGEM2-ES, GFDL-ESM2M, MPI-ESM-LR. These GCMs nicely span the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) of the GCMs making up the CMIP5 suite of models. Simulations have been performed both at .44 and .22 spatial resolutions and often for both RCP8.5 and 4.5. From these simulations, several matrices result. Both RegCM4 and WRF are driven by HADGEM and MPI for RCP 8.5 at both spatial resolutions, thus forming a 2 x 2 x 2 matrix. Both HirHam5 and RCA4 have been driven by EC-EARTH, for both RCP8.5 and 4.5 at .44 resolution, thus forming a 2 x 2 matrix. Finally, CanRCM4, CRCM5, and RCA4 have been driven by CanESM2 for both RCP 8.5 and 4.5 at .44 spatial resolution, resulting in a 3 X 2 matrix. We will present overview results for the quality of the current climate simulations, contrasts between the relevant GCMs and RCMs regarding climate change in the mid-21st century and late 21st century for both temperature and precipitation. Contrasts in spatial correlations of the changes will also be presented.

Linda O. Mearns1, Ray Arritt2, Melissa Bukovsky1, Chris Castro3, Hsin-I Chang3, Jens Christensen8, Ole Christensen8 ,Anne Frigon4, William Gutowski2, Erik Kjellstrom5, Rene Laprise6, Seth Mcginnis1, Grigory Nikulin5, John Scinocca7, L. Sushama6, and Katje Winger6

1National Center for Atmosperic Research, 2Iowa State, 3U. Arizona, Danish Meteorological Institute, 4Ouranos, 5Swedish Meteorological and Hydrologic Institute, 6University of Quebec at Montreal, 7Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis


III


CORDEX.be: COmbining Regional climate Downscaling EXpertise in Belgium

Piet TERMONIA

Royal Meteorological Institute - Belgium

The main objective of the ongoing project CORDEX.be, COmbining Regional Downscaling EXpertise in Belgium: CORDEX and Beyond, is to gather existing and ongoing Belgian research activities in the domain of climate modelling to create a coherent scientific basis for future climate services in Belgium. The project regroups 8 Belgian Institutes under a single research program of the Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO). The project involves three regional climate models: the ALARO model, the COSMO-CLM model and the MAR model running according to the guidelines of the CORDEX project and at convection permitting resolution on small domains over Belgium.

The project creates a framework to address four objectives/challenges. First, this projects aims to contribute to the EURO-CORDEX project. Secondly, RCP simulations are executed at convection-permitting resolutions (3 to 5 km) on small domains. Thirdly, the output of the atmospheric models is used to drive land surface models (the SURFEX model and the Urbclim model) with urban modules, a crop model (REGCROP), a tidesTUESDAY 17TH MAY 2016 15:00 and storm model (COHERENS) and the MEGAN-MOHYCAN model that simulates the fluxes emtted by vegetation. Finally, one work package will translate the uncertainty present in the CORDEX database to the high-resolution output of the CORDEX.be project.

The organization of the project will be presented and first results will be shown, demonstrating that convection-permitting models can add extra skill to the mesoscale version of the regional climate models, in particular regarding the extreme value statistics and the diurnal cycle.

Piet Termonia1, Bert Van Schaeybroeck1, Patrick Willems2, Nicole Van Lipzig2, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele3, Philippe Marbaix3, Xavier Fettweis4, Koen De Ridder5, Anne Gobin5, Trissevgeni Stavrakou6, Patrick Luyten7, Eric Pottiaux8

1Royal Meteorological Institute, 2University of Leuven, 3 Universit catholique de Louvain, 4Universit de Lige, 5Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek, 6Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, 7Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, 8Royal Observatory of Belgium


IV


The impact of climate change on photovoltaic power generation in Europe

Juan Pedro MONTAVEZ

University of Murcia - Espaa

Ambitious climate change mitigation plans call for a significant increase in use of renewables, which could, however, make the supply system more vulnerable to climate variability and changes. Here we evaluate climate change impacts on solar photovoltaic (PV) power in Europe using the recent EURO-CORDEX ensemble of high-resolution climate projections together with a PV power production model and assuming a well-developed European PV power fleet. Results indicate that the alteration of solar PV supply by the end of this century compared to the estimations made under current climate conditions should be in the range [-14%;+2%], with the largest decreases in Northern countries. Temporal stability of power generation does not appear as strongly affected in future climate scenarios either, even showing a slight positive trend in Southern countries. Therefore, despite small decreases in production expected in some parts of Europe, climate change is unlikely to threaten the European PV sector.

Sonia Jerez1, Isabelle Tobin2, Robert Vautar2, Juan Pedro Montvez1, Jose Mara Lpez-Romero1, Franoise Thais3, Blanka Bartok4, Ole Bssing Christensen5, Augustin Colette6, Michel Dqu7, Grigory Nikulin8, Sven Kotlarski4, Erik van Meijgaard9, Claas Teichmann10, Martin Wild4

1University of Murcia, 2Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de lEnvironnement, 3Institut de Technico-Economie des Systmes Energtiques (I-Ts), 4ETH Zrich, Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, 5Danish Meteorological Institute, 6Institut National de lEnvironnement Industriel et des Risques


V


Assessment of multiple daily precipitation statistics in ERA-Interim driven Med-CORDEX and EURO-CORDEX experiments against high resolution observations

Erika COPPOLA

Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) - Italy

We assess the statistics of different daily precipitation indices in ensembles of Med-CORDEX and EURO-CORDEX experiments at high resolution (grid spacing of ~0.11, or RCM11) and medium resolution (grid spacing of ~0.44, or RCM44) with regional climate models (RCMs) driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis of observations for the period 1989-2008. The assessment is carried out by comparison with a set of high resolution observation datasets for 9 European subregions. The statistics analyzed include quantitative metrics for mean precipitation, daily precipitation Probability Density Functions (PDFs), daily precipitation intensity, frequency, 95th percentile and 95th percentile of dry spell length. We assess both an ensemble including all Med-CORDEX and EURO-CORDEX models and one including the Med-CORDEX models alone. For the All Models ensembles, the RCM11 one shows a remarkable performance in reproducing the spatial patterns and seasonal cycle of mean precipitation over all regions, with a consistent and marked improvement compared to the RCM44 ensemble and the ERA-Interim reanalysis. A good consistency with observations by the RCM11 ensemble (and a substantial improvement compared to RCM44 and ERA-Interim) is found also for the daily precipitation PDFs, mean intensity and, to a lesser extent, the 95th percentile. In fact, for some regions the RCM11 ensemble overestimates the occurrence of very high intensity events while for one region the models underestimate the occurrence of the largest extremes. The RCM11 ensemble still shows a general tendency to underestimate the dry day frequency and 95th percentile of dry spell length over wetter regions, with only a marginal improvement compared to the lower resolution models. This indicates that the problem of the excessive production of low precipitation events found in many climate models persists also at relatively high resolutions, at least in wet climate regimes. Concerning the Med-CORDEX model ensembles we find that their performance is of similar quality as that of the all-models over the Mediterranean regions analyzed. Finally, we stress the need of consistent and quality checked fine scale observation datasets for the assessment of RCMs run at increasingly high horizontal resolutions.

Adriano Fantini, Francesca Raffaele, Csaba Torma, Sara Bacer, Erika Coppola, Filippo Giorgi1, Bodo Ahrens2, Clotilde Dubois3, Enrique Sanchez4, Marco Verdecchia5

1-Abdus Salam ICTP, Trieste, Italy 2- Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt a.M. Frankfurt/Main, Germany 3- Mto-France and Mercator Ocan, France, 4- Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain;5-University of L'Aquila, Italy


VI


CORDEX-Africa Integrating climate and impact science for policy

Christopher LENNARD

University of Cape Town - South Africa

Between 2011 and 2013 a series of workshops were held under the CORDEX-Africa banner to analyze data from the CORDEX-Africa downscalings with the purpose of publishing the results of these in accredited climate science journals. This process yeilded 9 papers whose first authors were all young African scientists. Additionally, a number of user engagement workshops were held in which climate and impacts scientists and decision-makers were brought together to discuss various climate information needs and to develop working relationships between these communities. However, the scientific analyses focuced on model evaluation with very little assessment of projections and the trans-disciplinary engagement is in hiatus as a result of lack of funding.

Through funding provided by the Swedish government we have been able to resume a coordinated analysis of CORDEX-Africa downscaled data by the four African analysis teams. Representatives from West, East, Central and southern Africa have met for three workshops to discuss and plan climate analysis strategies for their regions that will result in the production of another eight to ten climate science orientated papers and at least three impacts orientated papers within the next two years. A particularly encouraging development from these meetings has been the emergence of regional vulnerability-impact-adaptation teams who will facilitate the incorporation of CORDEX-Africa downscaled data into impact modelling literature (e.g. water, energy, health, agriculture) as well as downstream decision-making frameworks.

We report on the activities of these groups and present working paper titles and some preliminary results.


VII


Production and use of CORDEX projections a Swedish perspective on building climate services in practice

Erik KJELLSTRM

SMHI - Sweden

The Rossby Centre regional climate model RCA4 has been used to dynamically downscale ten different coupled atmosphere ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) from the CMIP5 project with horizontal resolution varying from about 1 to 3. For Europe downscaling has been done at 0.44 (c. 50 km) and at 0.11, (c. 12.5 km). In addition, RCA4 has also been used to dynamically downscale ERA-Interim reanalysis data as part of the model evaluation process. Results from the RCA4 EURO-CORDEX simulations has been analysed for model performance, added value of high resolution and various features of climate change. Particularly, a dialogue with Swedish end users has resulted in analysis of a number of climate variables and indices that are reported upon in this study. Examples are given of how information from the climate change experiments is used in a national climate service perspective which includes dissemination through the SMHI web page.

Erik Kjellstrm1, Lars Brring1, Grigory Nikulin1, Carin Nilsson2, Gustav Strandberg1

1SMHI, 2University of Lund


VIII


Assessment of the performance of CORDEX-South Asia experiments for monsoonal precipitation over the Himalayan region during present climate: part I

Shreta GHIMIRE

International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) - Nepal

The suite of 11 combinations from 6 Regional Climate Models (RCMs) with 10 initial and boundary conditions from different Global Climate Models (GCMs) collectively referred here as 11 COordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment in South Asia (CORDEX-South Asia) are considered to study precipitation sensitivity associated with the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) over the Himalayan region for the present climate (1970-2005). The summer monsoon precipitation climatology over the study area has not been studied with the help of CORDEX data. An approach has also been made to study the degree of agreement among individual experiments compared with the gridded observational dataset to quantify uncertainty among them. The experiments though show a wide variation among themselves with time and space in simulating precipitation distribution, but noticeably show dry precipitation along the foothills of the Himalayas against the corresponding observation. The experiment driven by Irish Center for High-End Computing (ICHEC) and downscaled using Rossby Center regional Atmospheric model version 4 developed by Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) simulate precipitation closely in correspondence with the observation. Overview of the study suggests that these experiments facilitate precipitation evolution and structure over the Himalayan region with certain degree of uncertainty.

Shreta Ghimire1, Aubhav Choudhary2, A. P. Dimri2

1International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), 2Jawaharlal Nehru University

PARALLEL SESSION A : BENEFITS OF DOWNSCALING A1: ADDED VALUE OF DOWNSCALLING

IX

WEDNESDAY 18TH MAY 2016 09:00

Challenges in the quest for added value of climate dynamical downscaling: Evidence of added value in North American regional climate model simulations with increasing

horizontal resolutions.

Ren LAPRISE

Universit du Qubec (UQAM), Montral - Canada

The added value afforded by the use high-resolution regional climate models (RCMs) to perform dynamical downscaling of coarse-resolution boundary conditions has not yet been fully explored and efforts in determining this added value are too few. This presentation will first review some of the challenges in determining RCMs added value. Then, recent simulations performed with CRCM5 over North America using grid meshes of 0.44, 0.22 and 0.11 will be compared with available observations, with a focus on five specific regional weather phenomena. The analysis shows that the orographic precipitation on the West Coast of North America is enhanced and more realistic, with two rainy bands in the finer resolution simulation. The spatial distribution of precipitation in August and the high frequency of summer precipitation extremes over southwestern United States reveal that the North American monsoon is improved with increasing resolution. Only the finer RCM simulation shows skill at producing snowbelts around the Great Lakes, as a result of an adequate simulation of lake-effect snow. A comparison of simulated wind roses in the St. Lawrence River Valley (SLRV) indicates that, due to an improved representation of complex orography, the finer mesh simulation is able to reproduce wind channeling, which is an important factor for freezing rain occurrence in the SLRV. Finally, the simulation of the summer land-sea breezes at higher resolution leads to added value in the diurnal cycle of precipitation over the Florida peninsula and the Caribbean islands. Overall, almost systematic improvements are found in the finer resolution simulations.

Ren Laprise1, Philippe Lucas-Picher1

1 Universit du Qubec (UQAM), Montral , Canada


X


Multiscale analysis of precipitation variability over South America: A preliminar analysis of the added value of RCMs.

SILVINA SOLMAN

Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmsfera (CIMA/CONICET-UBA)-DCAO(FCEN-UBA)- Buenos Aires - Argentina

Multiscale temporal variability of rainfall over South America as depicted by a high-resolution Regional Climate Model (RCM) and its driving low-resolution Global Coupled Model (GCM) is evaluated in this study with the aim of identifying the added value of downscaling. Rainfall over South America is characterized by significant variability patterns at different temporal scales. At the interannual timescales, the variability signal is mainly associated with the El Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is characterized by either positive or negative precipitation anomalies over La Plata Basin (LPB) during the warm season. At the intraseasonal timescales the variability pattern is characterized by a seesaw between the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACS) and south-eastern South America. At the higher frequencies, the synoptic-scale variability is much associated with the passage of frontal systems and its largest signal is located over the LPB region. The richness of the precipitation variability patterns over the South American continent and the well documented studies identifying the main characteristics and drivers of these patterns offer an excellent opportunity in evaluating the added value of high-resolution RCMs in reproducing these features.

In this preliminary analysis the REMO RCM from the CLARIS-LPB ensemble and the driving EC5OM GCM from the CMIP3 dataset have been evaluated for the period 1979-1990 against several observational datasets. The spatial resolution of the RCM and GCM are approximately 0.5 and 1.875, respectively. Gridded precipitation data from monthly and daily datasets were used. The analysis is carried out for two extended seasons: from October to March and from April to September. For he interannual timescales, the standard deviation of the monthly timeseries of rainfall anomalies was computed. For the intraseasonal and high-frequency timescales, the daily timeseries of rainfall anomalies were filtered using the Lanczos filter retaining periods of 10 to 90 days, and 4 to 10 days, respectively.

Overall, it was found that the REMO RCM is able of better reproducing the main features of rainfall variability compared with the driving EC5OM GCM in terms of its spatial scale and magnitude at the interannual, intraseasonal and higher frequency timescales, suggesting the added value of the RCM compared with the driving GCM.


XI


Quantifying the overall added value of dynamical downscaling and the contribution from different spatial scales

Alejandro DI LUCA

University of New South Wales - Australia

As shown by a large number of studies, the finding of mixed results where RCMs produce some improvements but also deteriorations compared to the driving data is relatively common in added value studies. A question that remains open is which of these two situations is more dominant. That is, whether we can quantify if RCMs produce in general independently of the statistic chosen an overall improvement over the driving data.

In this presentation, we will present results from a study that evaluates the added value in the representation of surface-climate variables from an ensemble of RCM simulations by comparing the relative skill of the RCM simulations and their driving data over a wide range of RCM experimental setups and climate statistics. The methodology is specifically designed to compare results across different variables and metrics, and it incorporates a rigorous approach to separate the added value occurring at different spatial scales.

Results show that the RCMs added value strongly depends on the type of driving data, the climate variable and the region of interest, but depends rather weakly on the choice of the statistical measure, the season and the RCM physical configuration. Decomposing climate statistics according to different spatial scales shows that improvements are coming from the small scales when considering the representation of spatial patterns, but from the large-scale contribution in the case of absolute values.

Alejandro Di Luca1, Daniel Argueso1,2, Jason Evans1,2, Ramn de Ela3,4 and Ren Laprise4,5

1 Climate Change Research Centre, Faculty of Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; 2 ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; 3 Consortium Ouranos, Montral, Canada; 4 Centre pour ltude et la Simulation du Climat lchelle Rgionale (ESCER), Montral, Canada; 5 Universit du Qubec Montral (UQAM), Montral, Canada.


XII


Multimodel CMIP5 and CORDEX simulations of Historical Summer Temperature and Precipitation Variabilities over West Africa

Pinghouinde Michel NIKIEMA

WASCAL - BURKINA FASO

In this paper, the mean climatology, the intermodel variability and the spatio-temporal patterns of temperature and precipitation over West Africa from CMIP5, CMIP5_SUBSET (ensemble of GCMs driving CORDEX) and CORDEX multimodel ensembles (MMEs) are evaluated and intercompared over West Africa for the monsoon season (June-September) during the historical period. We found that while CORDEX fails to outperform the simulated mean climatology of temperature by the CMIP5 ensembles, it substantially improves that of precipitation and provides more fine-scale features tied to local topography and landuse. The ensemble spread and descriptive statistics reveal that such an improvement is more a result of cancellation of errors in the Gulf Guinea but originates from a more consistent and realistic simulation of monsoon precipitation among the various Regional Climate Models (RCMs) in the Sahel. Analysis of the Rotated Empirical Orthogonal Function (REOF) indicates that all MMEs capture the spatio-temporal variability of both temperature and precipitation depicting the recent warming and the Sahel precipitation recovery that occur in recent decades over West Africa as identified in the first REOF mode. However, for the spatial patterns of the last two modes along with their associated time series, CORDEX mostly follows CMIP5_SUBSET. Our results thus points towards the strong influence of boundary forcing on the simulation of mean and spatio-temporal variability of temperature and precipitation over West Africa but also to the capability of CORDEX RCMs to pick regional contribution and improve upon the CMIP5 GCMs to some extent.

Pinghouinde Michel Nikiema(1,2)*, Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla(2), Kehinde Ogunjobi(3), Ibourahima Kebe(1,2), Peter Gibba(1,2), Filippo Giorgi(4)

(1) West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Landuse (WASCAL), Graduate Research Program on West African Climate System, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria (2) West African Science Service Center on Climate Change and Adapted Landuse (WASCAL), WASCAL Competence Center, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (3) Federal University of Technology, Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, Akure, Nigeria (4) Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Earth System Physics (ESP) section, Trieste, Italy


XIII


Searching for an Added Value of Precipitation in Downscaled Seasonal Hindcasts over East Africa: COSMO-CLM Forced by MPI-ESM

Bedassa Regassa CHENEKA

Agriculture Transformation Agency - Ethiopia

Downscaling of seasonal hindcasts over East Africa with the regional climate model (RCM) COSMO-CLM (CCLM), forced by the global climate model (GCM), MPI-ESM is evaluated. The simulations are done for five months (May to September) for a ten year period (2000-2009), with the evaluation performed only for June to September. The accuracy of the RCM simulations is assessed using ground based and satellite gridded observation data. Both COSMO-CLM and MPI-ESM overestimate June to September precipitation over the Ethiopian highlands and in parts of the lowland with respect to all reference datasets. In addition we investigated the potential and real added value for both the RCM and the GCM hindcasts by up-scaling (arithmetic mean) the precipitation resolution both in temporal and in spatial scales. RCM forecast has a higher value of total monthly precipitation compared to the GCM over the lowlands of East Africa. Over different parts North Ethiopia (EN), South Ethiopia (ES), South Sudan (SS), and Sudan (S) for the daily precipitation 90th and 95th percentiles, the potential added value is high over EN and ES. In contrast, it is less in the lowlands region S and SS. The potential and relative potential added value decrease with decreasing the temporal resolution.

Bedassa R.Cheneka1,2, Susanne Brienen1, Kristina Frhlich1, Shakeel Asharaf1, Barbara Frh1

1Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, Germany , 2 Agriculture Transformation Agency, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia


XIV


A fine scale topographical modulation of summer precipitation change over the European Alps challenging current GCM projections.

Filippo GIORGI

Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) - Italy

We analyze an ensemble of high resolution regional climate model (RCM) projections for the 21st century (RCP8.5 scenario) over the European Alps and find that, while on the broad scale a future reduction of summer precipitation is projected by the driving global models over the region, the RCM ensemble simulates an increase in precipitation over the high elevations of the Alpine chain. This positive precipitation change is due to a fine scale topographical modulation of the change signal induced by an increase in convective rain associated with increased potential instability by high elevation surface heating. This topographic signal is mostly consistent across models and similar across future time slices, and the full change signal is approximately given by the broad scale change (mostly driven by the GCMs) plus this topographical correction (produced by the fine scale RCMs). A similar topographical modulation of the change signal is also found for surface air temperature and precipitation extremes. Our results thus challenge the picture of a decreasing summer precipitation change signal over the Alps found in most GCM projections and point to the role of high resolution RCMs in adding valuable information on future climate projections in areas of complex topography. These conclusions are important for the estimation of impacts over the Alpine region.

Filippo Giorgi1, Csaba Torma1, Erika Coppola1,Nikolina Ban2, Christoph Schaer2, Samuel Somot3

1ICTP, 2ETHZ, 3MeteoFrance


XV


Is There an Added Value from Regional Climate Modeling for Projected Change in Future Northwest Pacific Tropical Cyclone Activities?

CHENG-TA CHEN

National Taiwan Normal University, Department of Earth Sciences - Taiwan

The majority of current approach for using dynamical model to project future seasonal tropical cyclone (TC) activity involves counting the number of TC-like vortices simulated in the model. It can be done using global climate model forced by observation or regional climate model forced by the same global model provided the thresholds used for TC detection and tracking are adjusted by the model characteristics and resolution. However, there could still be significant differences when comparing such two simulations, even though the regional model are forcing by the global model from lateral boundary and the same sea surface condition for lower boundary. Our study aims on using regional climate model to explore the added value of dynamical downscaling of TC activities over Northwest Pacific. In particular, we examined and compared the reliability of model to capture the TC-climate interactions including large-scale seasonal cycle, ENSO variability, and long-tern trend.

Further, the similarity and difference of the future projected change in seasonal TC activities between global climate model and regional climate model would be highlighted. The detailed review on the potential contribution from the large scale environmental conditions for TC genesis and preferred tracking and how they differ in the two simulated future projection would be analyzed.

Cheng-Ta Chen1, Teng-Ping Tseng1, Chao-Tzuen Cheng2, Yuqing Wang3

1National Taiwan Normal University, Department of Earth Sciences, 2National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, Taiwan, 3International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa


XVI


NA-CORDEX Simulation Assessment for the North American Monsoon

Melissa BUKOVSKY

National Center for Atmospheric Research- USA

In this presentation, an overview of the simulations produced for the North American Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (NA-CORDEX) will be assessed for their performance in simulating the North American monsoon (NAM) system. Differences between the 25km and 50km resolution NA-CORDEX simulations, and the benefits of using 25km versus the cost of doing so for this region will be emphasized. This analysis will particularly focus on precipitation and local phenomena and processes that govern its distribution and intensity across the NAM region during the baseline/current climate period; however, projections will be discussed as well. Notable differences between these simulations and the set produced for the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) will also be identified.


XVII


Added value of high resolution RCM simulations and comparison with Statistical Downscaling Methods within the EURO-CORDEX framework

Ana CASANUEVA

Meteorology Group, Dept. Applied Mathematics and Computer Sciences. University of Cantabria - Spain

High resolution Regional Climate Model (RCM) simulations and Statistical Downscaling Methods (SDMs) are important tools to provide the meteorological variables required in climate impact assessments. The present study analyzes two aspects that should be taken into account before using these methods in specific applications. First, we assess the added value of high resolution simulations from a EURO-CORDEX RCM ensemble. Secondly, RCMs are compared with SDMs, in order to show the merits and limitations of both downscaling techniques. Both aspects are assessed in terms of mean and extreme precipitation indices in Spain.

The EURO-CORDEX initiative provides an appropriate framework for this study, since a common grid is used for all RCMs and the high and low resolution grids match each other at the grid cell boundaries. The ability of the high-resolution RCM simulations (0.11) to represent observed precipitation is assessed at their skillful scale, by aggregating the 0.11 grid to the 0.44 resolution and evaluating the added value with respect to the low resolution (0.44) runs. Since RCMs are prone to systematic biases, the added value of the high resolution runs is also analyzed after applying bias correction methods to the RCMs. Gridded observational products are available over the same grids as the RCMs, such as the Spain02 v4 family of EURO-CORDEX-compliant gridded datasets over Spain. Therefore, the evaluation of the RCMs and the development of the SDMs can be carried out on exactly the same grids, and SDMs produce a downscaling output comparable to the RCMs. A set of SDMs (namely analog resampling, weather typing and different versions of Generalized Linear Models) are applied using ERA-Interim predictor variables under a cross-validation approach.

Results show limited evidence for an added value of the high resolution RCM simulations in terms of seasonal mean biases. There is an indication of added value in the spatial patterns; however, this is not statistically significant after bias correcting both simulations. The comparison of RCMs and SDMs based on specific precipitation-derived indices may not be fair as long as they are related to parameters that have been optimized in the calibration phase of SDMs. When the comparison is performed in terms of non-optimized parameters (e.g. dry spells), both downscaling techniques present similar skills and limitations.

Ana Casanueva1, Sixto Herrera1, Jess Fernndez1, Sven Kotlarski2 and Jos Manuel Gutirrez3

1Meteorology Group, Dept. Applied Mathematics and Computer Sciences. University of Cantabria. Spain, 2Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss, Switzerland, 3Meteorology Group, Instituto de Fsica de Cantabria (CSIC-University of Cantabria). Spain

PARALLEL SESSION A : BENEFITS OF DOWNSCALING A2: MODELS OF THE COUPLED REGIONAL CLIMATE SYSTEM

XVIII


How can high-resolution representation of the regional seas and aerosols modify regional climate change ? A fully-coupled regional climate system approach

to question current CORDEX experimental protocol

Samuel SOMOT

Mto-France/CNRM - France

Past and future regional climate change is potentially influenced by many global and regional drivers and, in particular, by various factors within the region of interest such as regional land-sea contrast, high-resolution representation of the topography, regional land-use change, high-resolution sea surface temperature change, regional aerosol load change, ... In the first phase of CORDEX, only part of these regional driving factors has been taken into account in the definition of the experimental protocols for the evaluation, historical and scenario runs. For example, the regional evolution of the SST and of the aerosol load were either not considered (use of constant values) or taken from the low-resolution driving GCMs. Here, we propose to question the limits of the current CORDEX protocol in the frame of historical and scenario simulations, using the Med-CORDEX domain for illustration. More specifically we focus on the impacts of the high-resolution representation of the SST changes and of the aerosol load changes on the projected Euro-Mediterranean climate change.

Twin simulations using the ALADIN-Climate RCM have been performed in addition to the classical CORDEX framework for present and future climate periods. To explore the role of the high-resolution SST changes, a fully-coupled Atmosphere-Ocean-River RCM has been developed for the Mediterranean Sea using an interactive daily coupling frequency. To explore the role of the high-resolution aerosol changes, a fully-coupled Atmosphere-Aerosol RCM has been developed including the interactive representation of the main natural and anthropogenic aerosol species as well as their radiative effects. The results show that the climate change signal of the Euro-Mediterranean region is significantly modified in the twin simulations. For example, the coupled Atmosphere-Ocean-River RCM reduces the Mediterranean SST warming which in turn influences the coastal climate whereas the coupled Atmosphere-Aerosol RCM reveals fine-scale pattern in the aerosol concentration changes inducing regional modifications in surface shorwave radiation and in surface temperature.

Our results question the design of the CORDEX experimental protocol and the preparation of the CORDEX Flagship Pilot Studies. They are also of interest for different communities of regional climate data users (e.g. marine ecosystem-based managers, fisheries, coastal tourism, wind- and solar-energy producers, air quality managers).

Samuel Somot1, Florence Sevault1, Pierre Nabat1

1Meteo-France/CNRM


XIX


HIRHAM5: A Regional Coupled Model System to Examine Ocean-Atmosphere-Sea Ice, Ice Sheet and Permafrost Interactions in the Arctic

Ole CHRISTENSEN

Danish Meteorological Institute - Denmark

We introduce a high resolution fully coupled regional model system that describes ocean, atmosphere and sea ice processes in the Arctic Ocean and North Atlantic and treats atmosphere / ocean / ice sheet interactions as well as land and sub-sea permafrost processes in an advanced semi-coupled form. The system has been developed using five existing model components: the high resolution regional climate model HIRHAM5, the regional ocean model HYCOM and the CICE model that describes sea ice dynamics, the PISM ice sheet model and the GIPL permafrost model. These models have been interactively coupled which enables us to perform experiments examining the relative importance of ocean and atmospheric forcing as well as internal dynamics, to explain the recent rapid decline of Arctic sea ice, recent changes in the Greenland ice sheet mass balance together with both land and sub-sea permafrost conditions. Analysis of the model results indicates the model can successfully reproduce the interannual and seasonal variability in sea ice extent, describe recent changes in the Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance as well as permafrost conditions around Greenland and possibly under the Arctic Ocean sea floor. This opens up the possibility of a range of process based experiments as well as simulations to project the future and study the past of Arctic sea ice that we plan to run using the EC-Earth GCM as boundary forcing.

Examples, focusing on various coupling issues will be presented and the need for further refinements will be assessed by highlighting processes that appear to be essential to the interactions and hence possibly important at climate scales.

Jens H. Christensen1, Ole B. Christensen1, Ruth Mottram1, Cathrine Fox Maule1, Peter L. Langen1, Fredrik Boberg1, Martin Stendel1, Christian Rodehacke1, Martin Olesen1, Kristine S. Madsen1, Tian Tian1, Mads H. Ribergaard1

1Dansih Meteorological Institute


XX


Influence of ocean and atmosphere coupling in a regional climate simulation over the CORDEX Southeast Asia domain

Armelle Reca REMEDIO

Climate Service Center Germany - Germany

Coupling of ocean to the atmosphere can potentially improve climate simulations including cyclonic activities within a region heavily influenced by the ocean-atmosphere interactions. From previous studies, atmosphere-only simulations have a tendency to produce higher number of cyclones compared to observations. In this study, REMO coupled with the Max Planck Institute Ocean Model or ROM, which is a regional atmosphere coupled with a global ocean model, is used to evaluate the impact of the atmosphere-ocean interaction to the tropical climate focusing on the typhoon activities. The aim is to identify the importance of the atmosphere-ocean coupling in the CORDEX Southeast Asia domain. The model domain spans 80 E to 180E and -15 S to 40 N, with a horizontal resolution of 50- and 25 km, and 27 hybrid vertical levels. The model is driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis and run from the period of 1980 to 2012. To compare the influence of atmosphere-ocean coupling, the atmospheric model is also run uncoupled. Results on the simulated precipitation and temperature are compared to observations as well the changes in the tropical cyclone activity. Preliminary results indicate that the warm and wet biases over the ocean in the uncoupled simulations are reduced in the coupled simulations especially during the typhoon season. The frequency of typhoon occurrences is lower compared to the uncoupled model and is comparable to observations.

Armelle Reca Remedio1,Dmitry Sein2, Kevin Hodges3, Nikolay Koldunov1, Daniela Jacob1

1Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), 2Alfred Wegener Institute(AWI), 3University of Reading


XXI


The Variable-resolution Earth System Model and its simulations of the Benguela upwelling system

Francois ENGELBRECHT

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research - South Africa

A new coupled climate model, the Variable-resolution Earth System Model (VRESM) is currently under development through collaborative research between the Council for Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) In Australia. The model employs ocean, atmosphere and land-surface models all cast on a cube-based grid and can be applied at quasi-uniform horizontal resolution to function as a global climate model, or in stretched-grid mode to function as a high-resolution regional climate model. The atmospheric model component is the Variable-cubic Atmospheric Model (VCAM) of CSIRO, which has evolved from the widely used Conformal-cubic Atmospheric Model (CCAM). The CSIRO Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange model (CABLE) provides VRESM with a dynamic land-surface, whilst the ocean is simulated by the newly developed Variable-cubic Ocean Model (VCOM) of the CSIR. VRESM development is taking place with the immediate objective of generating African-based projections of future global climate change as a contribution to CMIP6, whilst the stretched-grid version of the model is to be used to generate simulations of the coupled southern African climate system as part of the second phase of CORDEX. Here we present the first VRESM simulations of the coupled regional southern African ocean-atmosphere system, through the application of the model in stretched-grid mode. Of interest is the state of the Benguela upwelling system along the southern African west coast under climate change. The coupled model was applied at a resolution of about 8 km over a domain of about 2000 x 2000 km2 over a domain stretching from the western parts of southern African into the Atlantic Ocean, covering the western coastal areas of South Africa, Namibia and Angola. The simulations were nudged in the 50 km resolution global CCAM CORDEX simulations, performed earlier for the period 1960-2100 (six ensemble members under RCP8.5, with forcing from different host GCMs). The 8 km resolution downscalings indicate that a southward shift in the prevailing south-easterly winds along the southern African west coast may lead to a weakening of upwelling zones along the Namibian coast. This may have implications for the frequency of occurrence and intensity of fog events, and on the distribution and abundance of fish species relying on the nutrient-rich water of the upwelling zones.

Francois Engelbrecht1+2, John McGregor3, Marcus Thatcher3, Mthetho Sovara1

1CSIR Natural Resources and the Environment - South Africa, 2North West Univeristy - South Africa, 3 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation


XXII


Assessment of the Regional Climate Earth System Model (RegESM) simulation in reproducing observed climatic features of the atmosphere over the CORDEX Central

America domain

Ramn FUENTES FRANCO

ICTP - Italy

We use the recently developed Regional Earth System Model (RegESM) to assess its skill in reproducing climatic features of several atmospheric variables over the CORDEX Central American domain. The RegESM is composed by RegCM4 using CLM4.5 as land model, MITgcm ocean model and the Hydrological Discharge (HD) model, as atmospheric, land, ocean an river models respectively. By doing a comparison between atmosphere-only and RegESM simulations with observations, we show the main added value of the regional coupled model. In a ten year-period (1989-1998) simulation we analyze particularly the representation of the annual cycle over Southern Mexico and over the North American Monsoon region. The density and tracks of simulated tropical cyclones, the intensity and position of the Caribbean Low Level Jet (CLLJ), and of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) are also analyzed.

The position and intensity of the ITZC is better reproduced by the coupled model than the atmospheric-only simulation, however over the Pacific off the coast of Mexico there is an overestimation of precipitation due to warmer SST bias. Both models are able to capture the Mid-summer drought over Southern Mexico, however the North American monsoon is better reproduced by RegESM, this due to a better reproduced moisture flux from the Pacific ocean into the Monsoon region. Higher density of tropical cyclones is also found over both (Atlantic and Pacific) oceans in the coupled model simulation, due to greater evaporation as a consequence of the ocean-atmosphere fluxes in the coupled model compared with the atmospheric only simulation.

Ramn Fuentes-Franco1, Lina Sitz1, Riccardo Farneti1, Erika Coppola1, Filippo Giorgi1

ICTP


XXIII


The role of internal and external variability in the simulated Caribbean climate

William CABOS

University of Alcala - Spain

The geographical location of the Caribbean Sea makes it a crossroads to different climate signals that contribute to shape its mean state and variability, adding to its own regional factors. The roles of internal and external forcings in the Caribbean climate is pursued in this study by means of simulations with the regional coupled atmosphere-ocean model ROM. The model includes a global ocean with regionally high horizontal resolution, which is coupled to an atmospheric regional model and global terrestrial hydrology model. The coupling is only effective within a selected domain, where the ocean and the atmosphere are interacting. Outside this domain, the ocean model is uncoupled, driven by prescribed atmospheric forcing, thus running in a so-called stand-alone mode. Therefore, selecting a specific area for the regional atmosphere implies that the ocean- atmosphere system can develop freely, but for boundary conditions, in that area, whereas for the rest of the global ocean, the circulation is driven by prescribed atmospheric forcing without any feedbacks. Simulations with various coupled domains, centered on the region of interest and including different neighboring areas with a possible impact on the Caribbean climate, allow to identify what that influence amounts to and how the internal variability is affected by diverse elements. Four different coupled setups are chosen for ensemble simulations. The choice of the coupled domains was done to estimate the influences of the Subtropical Atlantic, Tropical Atlantic and Tropical Pacific regions on the Caribbean climate. Our simulations show that the regional coupled ocean atmosphere model is sensitive to the choice of the modeled area. The different model configurations reproduce differently both the mean climate and its variability. The mechanisms explaining such differences are diagnosed, and the key processes for a realistic simulation of the Caribbean climate are pointed out. Attention is given to the representation in our runs of relevant players in the climate fluctuations of the region, such as the Caribbean Low Level Jet.

Francisco lvarez-Garca1, William CabosNarvez1, Dmitry Sein2, Nikolay Koldunov3, Daniela Jacob3

1University of Alcala, 2Alfred Wegener Institute, 3Climate Service Center Germany


XXIV


Vegetation -climate feedbacks modulate rainfall patterns in Africa under future radiative forcing

Minchao Wu WU

Lund University - Sweden

Africa has been undergoing significant and rapid changes in climate patterns and vegetation in recent decades. Continued changes may be expected over the coming century, especially for the savannah areas where a fine balance between coverage of trees and grasses is upheld by seasonal patterns of water availability. Vegetation cover and composition imposes important influences on the physical climate system, and climate-driven changes in vegetation patterns may feed back to climate via shifts in surface-atmosphere energy balance, hydrological cycling and resultant effects on air pressure patterns and atmospheric circulation. The potential role of such feedbacks in the future evolution of African climate has not been previously addressed in detailed studies. We used a regional Earth system model uniquely incorporating interactive vegetation-atmosphere coupling to investigate the potential role of vegetation-mediated biophysical feedbacks on climate dynamics in Africa in an RCP8.5 future climate scenario. The model was applied at high resolution (0.44 x 0.44 degrees) across the African continent forced by lateral boundary conditions from the CanESM2 general circulation model. We found that changed vegetation patterns associated with a CO2 and climate-driven increase in net primary productivity particularly over sub-tropical savannah areas not only imposed important local effect on regional climate by altering surface energy fluxes, but also resulted in meso-scale remote effects over central Africa by modulating the land-ocean thermogradient, near-surface circulation and moisture inflow via the Atlantic Walker circulation feeding the central African tropical rainforest region with precipitation. The vegetation-mediated feedbacks were in general negative with respect to temperature, dampening the warming trend simulated in the absence of feedbacks, and positive with respect to precipitation, enhancing rainfall reduction over rainforest areas. Our results emphasize the importance of accounting for vegetation-atmosphere interactions in climate model projections for tropical and sub-tropical Africa.

Minchao Wu1, Guy Schurgers2, Benjamin Smith1, Patrick Samuelsson3, Christer Jansson3, Joe Siltberg1, Wilhelm May4, Paul Miller1, Markku Rummukainen4

1INES, Lund University, 2University of Copenhagen, 3SMHI, 4CEC, Lund University


XXV


Simulation of the Arctic climate system with the Regional Arctic System Model (RASM): Sensitivity to atmospheric processes

John CASSANO

University of Colorado - United States

A new regional Earth system model focused on the Arctic, the Regional Arctic System Model (RASM), has recently been developed. The initial version of this model includes atmosphere (WRF), ocean (POP), sea ice (CICE), and land (VIC) component models coupled using the NCAR CESM CPL7 coupler. The model is configured to run on a large pan-Arctic domain that includes all sea ice covered waters in the Northern Hemisphere and all Arctic Ocean draining land areas.

Results from a suite of multi-decadal (1990 to 2014) simulations with RASM will be presented and will focus on the simulated climate system's sensitivity to atmospheric processes and parameterizations. These simulations show that the modeled climate is sensitive to changes in the boundary layer and cumulus parameterizations used in the atmospheric component of RASM. Depending on the WRF parameterizations used the model either overestimates or underestimates cloud cover over the ocean. Underestimation of clouds over land areas is common in all versions of the model evaluated. The differences in simulated cloud impacts the surface and top of the atmosphere radiation budget, alters biases in land and ocean surface temperature, changes precipitation distribution within the domain, and leads to different sea ice states being simulated. Simulations with only the atmospheric component of RASM were also run and highlight the model response that is solely due to atmospheric processes and the model response arising from coupled processes in RASM.

John Cassano1, Alice DuVivier1, Andrew Roberts2, Mimi Hughes1, Mark Seefeldt1, Michael Brunke3, Anthony Craig3, Brandon Fisel4, William Gutowski4, Josepth Hamman5, M. Higgins1, Wieslaw Maslowski2, Bart Nijssen5, Robert Osinski6, Xubin Zeng3

1University of Colorado, 2Naval Postgraduate School, 3University of Arizona, 4Iowa State University, 5University of Washington, 6Institute of Oceanology


XXVI


Regional coupled ocean-atmosphere simulation of the Indian Monsoon

Vasu MISRA

Florida State University/COAPS - United States

This study highlights the importance of the high resolution air-sea coupling for the simulation of the Indian Monsoon. These simulations were carried out using a fully coupled regional ocean-atmosphere modeling system, which contains the RSM (Regional Spectral Model) as the atmospheric part and ROMS (Regional Ocean Modeling System) as the ocean counterpart. The RSM has 28 terrain following sigma levels that is identical to the NCEP-DOE reanalysis, while ROMS has 30 vertical ocean sigma levels. High-resolution ETOPO5 bathymetry is used in ROMS for the coupled simulation. The RSM and ROMS share the same domain and resolution to avoid interpolation between ocean and atmosphere model grids. SST and fluxes are exchanged between atmosphere and ocean model without using any SST-flux coupler. The Coupled downscaling is a free run without any heat or salinity corrections. The two analyzed regional simulations use for one atmospheric and ocean reanalysis (NCEP-DOE atmospheric reanalysis and Simple Ocean data assimilation) and the other CCSM4 20th century simulation as lateral boundary conditions. In addition we also downscale the CCSM4 with just the RSM using the CCSM4 boundary conditions and SST. In comparing and analyzing these model integrations we will highlight the ocean rectification effect on the monsoon simulation from downscaling, which is otherwise missed in atmospheric downscaling.

PARALLEL SESSION A : BENEFITS OF DOWNSCALING A3: FROM DATA TO INFORMATION - A DISTILLATION DILEMMA

XXVII


From regional climate scenarios to economics: identifying uncertainties and risks in the adaptation modelling chain

Kirsten HALSNS

Technical University of Denmark - Denmark

Planning and decision-making for instance in terms of supporting adaptation related to fundamental societal infrastructure such as transport, energy and water systems increasingly rely on quantitative information regarding climate change impacts and risks derived from combinations of different data sources e.g. climate, physical/environmental and socio-economic models and their inherent uncertainties. In practical terms it is however generally difficult to carry out full and unbiased analyses due to critical assumptions and methodological challenges related to key uncertainties along all steps of the modelling chain (scenarios, climate models, impacts models, economics, decision-making, etc.) which may be in parts related to lack of information crucial for determining future impacts and risks. For example at the regional or local scale such impact assessments are typically contingent on the availability and quality of high-resolution regional climate change projections made available through communities such as CORDEX. In this study we present the results of using a methodological framework for integrated analysis of extreme events and damage costs aimed at distilling information obtained through trans-disciplinary approaches while systematically identifying key factors and uncertainties in the modelling chain, which are relevant for specific adaptation decisions. The approach is here applied to a case study of urban flooding for the medium sized Danish city of Odense. We address a number of different combinations of climate scenarios/projections, damage cost curve approaches, and economic assumptions, including risk aversion and equity represented by discount rates. Considering a wide range of these different types of assumptions we find a very wide range of risk estimates, but we are also able to identify a range of robust decisions, and we investigate some of the major impacts of alternative assumptions.The study demonstrates that in terms of decision-making the actual expectations concerning future climate impacts and the economic assumptions applied are very important in determining the risks of extreme climate events and, thereby, of the level of cost-effective adaptation seen from the society's point of view.

Reference. Halsns et al. (2015) Key drivers and economic consequences of highend climate scenarios: uncertainties and risks. Climate Research Vol. 64: 8598

Kirsten Halsns1, Martin Drews1, Per Skougaard Kaspersen1

1Technical University of Denmark


XXVIII


High-resolution (10km) ensemble regional climate projections for SE Asia

Jack KATZFEY

CSIRO - Australia

To assist the government of Vietnam in its efforts to better understand the impacts of climate change and prioritise its adaptation measures, detailed climate change projections at 10 km resolution across Vietnam were produced for the High-resolution Climate Projections for Vietnam (HCPV) project. Six of the latest available global climate models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 were selected on the basis of their ability to realistically capture current climate and climate features such as El Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Using bias-corrected sea surface temperatures from the GCMs, global simulations were first made using the Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model (CCAM). Then, two RCMs (CCAM and RegCM) were then used to further dynamically downscale the global data to produce high-resolution (10 km or 20 km) simulations for current and future climate. Simulations were performed for historical (1970-2005) and future (to 2099) time periods using two representative concentration pathways: RCP4.5 and 8.5.

The GCM selection process was done through both internal assessments of accuracy as well as international studies. The bias correction technique used in this study corrects both the monthly means, as well as interannual variability, in order to capture the magnitude and location of SST variability such as ENSO. The current climate is validated against both station and gridded datasets. The main results presented will focus on the projected changes in temperature and rainfall, as well as extremes. The key point the need for ensembles in order to capture the spread of the possible projections. For many variables, the ensemble projected changes spread across zero. For a few variables though, the changes by the end-of-the century show more one-sided changes.

Finally, the use of a risk-based approach to using the projections will be discussed. Although the projected changes may not be significant, the risk of the more extreme changes could have significant implications for adaptation planning.


XXIX


Who should adapt to climate change? A tale of multiple timescales.

Dominique PAQUIN

Ouranos - Canada

As climate change adaptation is increasingly discussed and becoming a mainstream concept, different kinds of users are asking themselves if and when they should develop an adaptation strategy, often not knowing where to begin. Climate experts, on the other hand, have access to an enormous amount of data that could be useful to users but often do not know how to translate it into something practical. Both users and experts can be connected through two timescales, the system lifespan and climate vulnerability. While the system lifespan relies exclusively on the users estimation of planning timeframe (or infrastructure life expectancy), the climate vulnerability is estimated from climate model projections and observations. We propose a simple tool to relate user and climate expert knowledge by combining the two timescales. To be reliable, the interconnection implies a dialogue to identify sensitive climate variables that will impact the system and a measure of how it will impact it. Climate data can then be used to identify the section of a simple diagram where the system is located and help the users to position themselves about the urgency of adaptation. The concept has been successfully presented and applied to the tourism industry, which will be showcased in this presentation.

Dominique Paquin1, Ramon de Ela1,2, Stphanie Bleau1, Isabelle Charron1

1Consortium Ouranos, 2Centre ESCER, Universit du Qubec Montral


XXX


From (big)data to information visualization with birdhouse: a collection of Web Processing Services

Nils HEMPELMANN

Le Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement - France

Creating robust climate change information messages from multiple, distributed sources requires workflows capable of handling various technical and computational challenges. Data access, download or storage and diverse data/metadata formats, etc. can be workflow bottlenecks. Appropriate statistical methods for robust results are currently not centralized, thus analysis scripts are often produced in-house. This unnecessarily re-invents the wheel and proliferates unstandardized workflows that lack common benchmarks. Also, we underutilize the wide range of powerful interactive visualization tools increasingly available. These include JavaScript libraries and their Python/R derivatives that allow e.g. dimensional filtering of large datasets, and web map services that provide slippy maps from NetCDF files at different resolutions on the fly.

We present birdhouse, a growing collection of web processing services (WPS) and web mapping services for data access, analysis and visualization connected with standard protocols over HTTP. This enables data processing close to data archives such as ESGF, reducing data transport, and the modular architecture allows data processing with a variety of methods that can be shared and combined.

Birdhouse consists of "birds" (Python-based WPS components) to simplify the usage of WPS in the climate science context. For example, Malleefowl simplifies the access of NetCDF files from Thredds catalogues (ESGF). Flyingpigeon contains a collection of climate analysis algorithms and impact models as well as basic operations like extraction of polygon subsets from a grid. Phoenix is a web user interface to run WPS processes with an easy-to-use data selection component. Finally, there is Birdy, a command-line tool to interact with WPS processes.

To illustrate a full workflow, we present a use case based on bias-adjusted CORDEX and EOBS observation data to calculate extreme weather events in Europe. Birdhouse modules were used to calculate the means over 251 European regions of a selection of climate indices in yearly and seasonal aggregates under 2 RCP scenarios for several models. After birdhouse processing, extreme events (below/above the 10th/90th percentile of EOBS data, reference period 19762005) were then visualized using dc.js to produce an interactive dashboard that can be filtered based on any of the dimensions, alone or in combination.

With such workflows, robust information of big data can be produced and visualized.

Nils Hempelmann1, Carsten Ehbrecht2, Stephan Kindermann2 , Patrick Brockmann1, Cathy Nangini1, Robert Vautard1

1LSCE Le Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Saclay, France, 2DKRZ German Climate Computing Centre, Hamburg, Germany


XXXI


Visual Summaries of Ensemble Regional Projections

Joe DARON

Met Office - United Kingdom

The regional climate projection data available for regional climate change assessments and impact and adaptation studies has become increasingly complex; often multi-model, multi-method and multi-scale. Visual summaries of ensemble projection data can be used to distil and convey key messages about projected regional climate change, but involve challenging decisions about how best to reduce and present the data in order to convey those messages clearly and intuitively.

In this study, various methods of communicating a range of plausible climate scenarios are investigated, with the aim to identify effective methods of communicating ensemble regional projections with varying levels of complexity. Specifically, novel methods of communicating uncertainty within climate model projections on a range of spatial scales are portrayed, improving on existing approaches of communicating a distribution of regional projections. We demonstrate a number of approaches to address the following issues with representing key spatial, temporal and uncertainty characteristics of projection information:

(a) Quantitative information about uncertainty from multi-model GCM spread and distribution can be challenging to express clearly alongside quantitative, spatial projection information. An additional challenge and opportunity exists where multi-method data are available, to show how the datasets relate to one another in an uncertainty context for example, by indicating where members of a downscaled subset of CMIP5 models sit in the context of the broader CMIP5 ensemble before and after downscaling.

(b)

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