This study assesses the performance of large ensembles of global (CMIP5, CMIP6) and regional (CORDEX, CORE) climate models in simulating extreme precipitation over four major river basins (Limpopo, Okavango, Orange, and Zambezi) in southern Africa during the period 1983–2005. The ability of the model ensembles to simulate seasonal extreme precipitation indices is assessed using three high-resolution satellite-based datasets. The results show that all ensembles overestimate the annual cycle of mean precipitation over all basins, although the intermodel spread is large, with CORDEX being the closest to the observed values. Generally, all ensembles overestimate the mean and interannual variability of rainy days (RR1), maximum consecutive wet days (CWD), and heavy and very heavy precipitation days (R10mm and R20mm, respectively) over all basins during all three seasons. Simple daily rainfall intensity (SDII) and the number of consecutive dry days (CDD) are generally underestimated. The lowest Taylor skill scores (TSS) and spatial correlation coefcients (SCC) are depicted for CDD over Limpopo compared with the other indices and basins, respectively. Additionally, the ensembles exhibit the highest normalized standard deviations (NSD) for CWD compared to other indices. The intermodel spread and performance of the RCM ensembles are lower and better, respectively, than those of GCM ensembles (except for the interannual variability of CDD).

SAMUEL Sydney;  DOSIO Alessandro;  MPHALE Kgakgamatso;  NSADISA FAKA Dieudonne;  WISTON Modise; 

2023-07-28

SPRINGER

JRC130537

0165-0009 (online),   

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-023-03530-3,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC130537,   

10.1007/s10584-023-03530-3 (online),