Bias correction of the ENSEMBLES high-resolution climate change projections for use by impact models: Evaluation on the present climate
A statistical bias correction technique is applied to a set of
high resolution climate change simulations for Europe from 11 state-of-theart
regional climate models (RCMs) from the project ENSEMBLES. Modelled
and observed daily values of mean, minimum and maximum temperature
and total precipitation are used to construct transfer functions for the
period 1961-1990, which are then applied to the decade 1991-2000, where the
results are evaluated. By using a large ensembles of model runs and a long
construction period, we take into account both inter-model variability, and
longer (e.g. decadal) natural climate variability. Results show that the technique
performs successfully for all variables over large part of the European
continent, for all seasons. In particular, the probability distribution functions
(PDFs) of both temperature and precipitation are greatly improved, especially
in the tails, i.e., increasing the capability of reproducing extreme events.
When the statistics of bias corrected results are ensemble-averaged, the result
is very close to the observed ones. The bias correction technique is also
able to improve statistics that depend strongly on the temporal sequence of
the original field, such as the number of consecutive dry days and the total
amount of precipitation in consecutive heavy precipitation episodes, which
are quantities that may have a large influence on e.g. hydrological or crop
impact models. Bias-corrected projections of RCMs are hence found to be
potentially useful for the assessment of impacts of climate change over Europe.
Dosio A, Paruolo P. Bias correction of the ENSEMBLES high-resolution climate change projections for use by impact models: Evaluation on the present climate. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES 116 (D16106); 2011. JRC65181
2011-08-25
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
JRC65181
0148-0227
Language |
Citation |
ENG | Dosio A, Paruolo P. Bias correction of the ENSEMBLES high-resolution climate change projections for use by impact models: Evaluation on the present climate. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES 116 (D16106); 2011. JRC65181 |