Title: Assessment of the ENSEMBLES regional climate models in the representation of precipitation
variability and extremes over Portugal
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Author(s): Soares, Pedro M. M. ; Cardoso, Rita M. ; Miranda, Pedro M. A. ; Viterbo, Pedro ; Belo1
Pereira, Margarida
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres
Volume: 117
Article Number: D07114 DOI: 10.1029/2011JD016768 Published: Apr 14 2012
Document Type: Article
Language: English
Abstract: A new data set of daily gridded observations of precipitation, computed from over 400
stations in Portugal, is used to assess the performance of 12 regional climate models at 25 km
resolution, from the ENSEMBLES set, all forced by ERA-40 boundary conditions, for the 1961-2000
period. Standard point error statistics, calculated from grid point and basin aggregated data, and
precipitation related climate indices are used to analyze the performance of the different models in
representing the main spatial and temporal features of the regional climate, and its extreme events. As
a whole, the ENSEMBLES models are found to achieve a good representation of those features, with
good spatial correlations with observations. There is a small but relevant negative bias in precipitation,
especially in the driest months, leading to systematic errors in related climate indices. The
underprediction of precipitation occurs in most percentiles, although this deficiency is partially
corrected at the basin level. Interestingly, some of the conclusions concerning the performance of the
models are different of what has been found for the contiguous territory of Spain; in particular,
ENSEMBLES models appear too dry over Portugal and too wet over Spain. Finally, models behave quite
differently in the simulation of some important aspects of local climate, from the mean climatology to
high precipitation regimes in localized mountain ranges and in the subsequent drier regions.
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KeyWords Plus: US Pacific-Northwest; European Climate; Simulations; Temperature; 20 -Century;
Performance; Projections; Statistics; Patterns; Dataset
Reprint Address: Soares, PMM (reprint author), Univ Lisbon, Fac Ciencias, Inst Dom Luiz, Ed C8 3-26, P1749016 Lisbon, Portugal.
Addresses:
1. Inst Meteorol, P-1749077 Lisbon, Portugal
2. Inst Super Engn Lisboa, ADEC, Lisbon, Portugal
3. Univ Lisbon, Inst Dom Luiz, CGUL, P-1699 Lisbon, Portugal
E-mail Address: [email protected]
ISEL – Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa
SDP - Serviço de Documentação e Publicações
Funding:
Funding Agency
Grant Number
Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) REWRITE-PTDC/CLI/73814/2006
European Union
GOCE-CT-2003-505539
Publisher: Amer Geophysical Union
Publisher Address: 2000 Florida Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
ISSN: 0148-0227
Citation: Soares P M M, Cardoso R M, Miranda P M A, Viterbo P, Belo-Pereira M. Assessment of the
ENSEMBLES regional climate models in the representation of precipitation variability and extremes over
Portugal. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres. 2012; 117.
ISEL – Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa
SDP - Serviço de Documentação e Publicações