A Projection of the Impact of the Climate Change induced by Increased Greenhouse Gases on the Hydroclimate of East Asia

HR: 1340h
AN: GC33B-1257 [Abstracts]
TI: A Projection of the Impact of the Climate Change induced by Increased Greenhouse Gases on the Hydroclimate of East Asia
AU: Kim, J
EM: jkim@atmos.ucla.edu
AF: UCLA, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565 United States
AU: Jung, H
EM: hsjung@atmos.ucla.edu
AF: UCLA, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565 United States
AU: Mechoso, C R
EM: mechoso@atmos.ucla.edu
AF: UCLA, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565 United States
AU: Jones, R
EM: richard.jones@metoffice.com
AF: Met Office, Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road., Exeter, Dev EX1 3PB United Kingdom
AU: * Hein, D
EM: david.hein@metoffice.com
AF: Met Office, Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road., Exeter, Dev EX1 3PB United Kingdom
AB: The authors present a projection of the regional-scale climate change signals in East Asia induced by increased atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) obtained by downscaling the global climate change scenarios generated by HadAM3P using the MAS model. The impact of the climate change induced by the increases in the atmospheric GHGs on the water cycle in East Asia is an important concern. The large population base and rapidly growing industrial activities in the region have been susceptible to the variations in water cycle that affect the frequency of weather-related natural disasters as well as water resources to sustain them. Hence, projections of future water cycle are crucial for planning for sustainable developments in the region. We compare the results from three 30-year long simulations. One represents todayİs climate (1961-1990) and the other two represent the future climate for the period 2071-2100 based on the SRES-A2/B2 emission scenarios (Nakicenovic et al. 2000), respectively. The downscaled control climate represents reasonably the characteristics of the climatology from observational data. In particular, the dynamical downscaling could improve warm season rainfall in the region compared to the GCM simulations. The seasonal mean temperature signal ranges 1-8 K, with larger increases in the high latitude regions which is consistent with other studies (e.g., IPCC 2001). The rainfall signals suggest increases (decreases) in summer rainfall in southern China, northern Mongolia, northern Manchuria, Korean Peninsula and Japan Islands (northern China and the South China Sea). We will also present the impact of increased GHGs on important hydrological characteristics such as the frequency of extreme events.
DE: 1616 Climate variability (1635, 3305, 3309, 4215, 4513)
DE: 1622 Earth system modeling (1225)
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
DE: 1637 Regional climate change
DE: 1655 Water cycles (1836)
SC: Global Climate Change [GC]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005