Detecting Changes in Precipitation and Temperature Extremes over China Using a Regional Climate Model with Water Table Dynamics Considered

• Published in: Atmospheric and oceanic science letters = Daqi-he-haiyang-kexue-kuaibao 2014, Vol.7 (2), p.103-109
• Main Author: QIN Pei-Hua XIE Zheng-Hui WANG Ai-Wen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1674-2834; 2376-6123
• DOI: 10.1080/16742834.2014.11447143

Simulations were conducted with the regional climate model RegCM incorporating water table dynamics from 1 September 1982 to 28 August 2002 to detect precipitation and temperature extremes. Compared with observed r10（number of days with precipitation ≥ 10 mm d^–1）, RegCM3_Hydro（the regional climate model with water table dynamics considered） simulated rain belts, including those in southern China and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and provided data for arid to semi-arid areas such as the Heihe River Basin in northwestern China. RegCM3_Hydro indicated a significant increasing trend of r95p（days with daily precipitation greater than the 95th percentile of daily amounts） for the Yangtze, Yellow, and Pearl River basins, consistent with r95p observations. The Haihe River Basin was also chosen as a specific case to detect the effect of groundwater on extreme precipitation using peaks over threshold（POT）-based generalized Pareto distribution（GPD） with parameters estimated by the L-moment method. Quantile plots showed that all but a few of the plotted points were distributed near diagonal lines and the modeled data fitted well with the samples. Finally, the effects of water table dynamics on temperature extremes were also evaluated. In the Yellow River Basin and Songhuajiang River Basin, the trends of the number of warm days（TX95n） from RegCM3_Hydro matched observed values more closely when water table dynamics were considered, and clearly increasing numbers of warm days from 1983 to 2001 were detected.