HR: 1330h
AN: GC12A-0154    [PDF]
TI: Greenhouse Warming and Severe Summer Precipitation over Europe
AU: * Christensen, O B
EM: obc@dmi.dk
AF: Danish Meteorological Institute, Lyngbyvej 100, Copenhagen O, DK-2100 Denmark
AU: Christensen, J H
EM: jhc@dmi.dk
AF: Danish Meteorological Institute, Lyngbyvej 100, Copenhagen O, DK-2100 Denmark
AB: Projections of future climate change of extreme precipitation for Europe already exist, but are deficient in terms of their regional detail. High-resolution climate change simulations for an area covering the entire European continent and a substantial part of the North Atlantic are part of the PRUDENCE project financed by the EU 5th framework program. More than 8 different regional models are taking part in the project, using resolutions between 25 and 50 km. All experiments are driven by similar large-scale atmospheric boundary conditions from relatively high-resolution global models. The emission scenarios used were the IPCC SRES scenarios A2 and B2. 30-year time slice experiments were conducted with the regional models for periods representing the present (1961-1990) and the future (2071-2100) in the two scenarios. Resolution limitation in a global model precludes the simulation of realistic extreme events and the spatial structure of precipitation over heterogeneous surfaces. Due to a much better representation of the surface topography in a regional model, the geographical distribution of seasonal mean precipitation patterns generally represents a substantial improvement compared to the driving model. Likewise, high resolution is needed to provide sufficient information on the statistical distribution of daily rainfall events. Daily precipitation statistics for the summer period of several regional simulations is presented. As a robust result, high percentiles of precipitation show general increasing trends even in areas that experience a decrease in average precipitation, in particular in southern Europe.
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (3309)
DE: 1630 Impact phenomena
DE: 3354 Precipitation (1854)
SC: Global Climate Change [GC]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting