engleski

Indices of precipitation extremes at the Croatian Adriatic coast in the RegCM3 simulations of present and near‐future climate

Five indices of precipitation extremes, which indicate intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall events, are analysed over the Croatian Adriatic on seasonal and annual basis in the referent (1961-1990) and the near-future (2011-2040) climate based on a 3-member ensemble of the Regional Climate Model (RegCM3) simulations. Future climate integrations were performed under the IPCC A2 emission scenario. The simulated extreme precipitation indices and mean precipitation in the reference period are validated by observations from 19 meteorological stations. Simulated precipitation is larger than observed in all seasons except summer. The overestimation comes from too large precipitation amounts in the upper quartile of daily precipitation distribution and from overestimated number of wet days (i.e. underestimated number of dry days (DD)). Errors in daily precipitation intensity (SDII) are governed by precipitation errors in winter, spring and summer. In autumn and on annual basis, despite the overestimation of precipitation by RegCM3, SDII is smaller than observed due to more wet days in the model. The interannual variability of precipitation and indices is well reproduced with a tendency of the model to overestimate the variability, particularly in summer. Simulated trends in the present climate largely agree in the sign when compared with observed trends but in terms of magnitude they are underestimated. In the near-future climate, a decrease of precipitation is projected for the year, spring and autumn, and an increase in winter and summer. SDII changes in winter, spring and summer are dominated by precipitation change, while for the year and in autumn due to the increase of DD (i.e. decrease in wet days) areas with increased SDII are seen. The R95T is projected to increase over some parts of the Croatian Adriatic, not only in seasons when precipitation is expected to increase, but also in spring, autumn and on the annual basis.

precipitation extremes; RegCM3; climate change

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