Identifying a robust method to build RCMs ensemble as climate forcing for hydrological impact models

The regional climate models (RCMs) improve the understanding of the climate mechanism and are often used as climate forcing to hydrological impact models. Rainfall is the principal input to the water cycle, so special attention should be paid to its accurate estimation. However, climate change proje...

ver descrição completa

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Olmos Giménez, Patricia, García Galiano, Sandra Gabriela, Giraldo Osorio, Juan Diego
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Recursos:Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena(UPCT)
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital UPCT
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.upct.es:10317/13465
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10317/13465
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169809516300035
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Climate change
RCMs ensemble
Rainfall variability
Uncertainties reduction
Ingeniería Hidráulica
2508 Hidrología
2509.04 Hidrometeorología
2502 Climatología
1209 Estadística
Descrição
Resumo:The regional climate models (RCMs) improve the understanding of the climate mechanism and are often used as climate forcing to hydrological impact models. Rainfall is the principal input to the water cycle, so special attention should be paid to its accurate estimation. However, climate change projections of rainfall events exhibit great divergence between RCMs. As a consequence, the rainfall projections, and the estimation of uncertainties, are better based in the combination of the information provided by an ensemble approach from different RCMs simulations. Taking into account the rainfall variability provided by different RCMs, the aims of this work are to evaluate the performance of two novel approaches based on the reliability ensemble averaging (REA) method for building RCMs ensembles of monthly precipitation over Spain. The proposed methodologies are based on probability density functions (PDFs) considering the variability of different levels of information, on the one hand of annual and seasonal rainfall, and on the other hand of monthly rainfall. The sensitivity of the proposed approaches, to two metrics for identifying the best ensemble building method, is evaluated. The plausible future scenario of rainfall for 2021–2050 over Spain, based on themore robustmethod, is identified. As a result, the rainfall projections are improved thus decreasing the uncertainties involved, to drive hydrological impacts models and therefore to reduce the cumulative errors in the modeling chain.