Convection-permitting climate models offer more certain extreme rainfall projections

Extreme precipitation events lead to dramatic impacts on society and the situation will worsen under climate change. Decision-makers need reliable estimates of future changes as a basis for effective adaptation strategies, but projections at local scale from regional climate models (RCMs) are highly...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:NPJ climate and atmospheric science 2024-02, Vol.7 (1), p.51-10, Article 51
Main Authors: Fosser, Giorgia, Gaetani, Marco, Kendon, Elizabeth J., Adinolfi, Marianna, Ban, Nikolina, Belušić, Danijel, Caillaud, Cécile, Careto, João A. M., Coppola, Erika, Demory, Marie-Estelle, de Vries, Hylke, Dobler, Andreas, Feldmann, Hendrik, Goergen, Klaus, Lenderink, Geert, Pichelli, Emanuela, Schär, Christoph, Soares, Pedro M. M., Somot, Samuel, Tölle, Merja H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/106/694/2786
704/172/4081
Adaptation
Alpine regions
Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution
Atmospheric Sciences
Climate change
Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts
Climate models
Climatology
Convection
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Estimates
Extreme weather
Local precipitation
Precipitation
Rainfall
Uncertainty
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Summary:Extreme precipitation events lead to dramatic impacts on society and the situation will worsen under climate change. Decision-makers need reliable estimates of future changes as a basis for effective adaptation strategies, but projections at local scale from regional climate models (RCMs) are highly uncertain. Here we exploit the km-scale convection-permitting multi-model (CPM) ensemble, generated within the FPS Convection project, to provide new understanding of the changes in local precipitation extremes and related uncertainties over the greater Alpine region. The CPM ensemble shows a stronger increase in the fractional contribution from extreme events than the driving RCM ensemble during the summer, when convection dominates. We find that the CPM ensemble substantially reduces the model uncertainties and their contribution to the total uncertainties by more than 50%. We conclude that the more realistic representation of local dynamical processes in the CPMs provides more reliable local estimates of change, which are essential for policymakers to plan adaptation measures.
ISSN:2397-3722
2397-3722
DOI:10.1038/s41612-024-00600-w