Evaluation of New CORDEX Simulations Using an Updated Köppen–Trewartha Climate Classification

A new ensemble of climate and climate change simulations covering all major inhabited regions with a spatial resolution of about 25 km, from the WCRP CORDEX COmmon Regional Experiment (CORE) Framework, has been established in support of the growing demands for climate services. The main objective of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Armelle Reca Remedio, Claas Teichmann, Lars Buntemeyer, Kevin Sieck, Torsten Weber, Diana Rechid, Peter Hoffmann, Christine Nam, Lola Kotova, Daniela Jacob
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2019-11-01
Series:Atmosphere
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/10/11/726
Description
Summary:A new ensemble of climate and climate change simulations covering all major inhabited regions with a spatial resolution of about 25 km, from the WCRP CORDEX COmmon Regional Experiment (CORE) Framework, has been established in support of the growing demands for climate services. The main objective of this study is to assess the quality of the simulated climate and its fitness for climate change projections by REMO (REMO2015), a regional climate model of Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS) and one of the RCMs used in the CORDEX-CORE Framework. The CORDEX-CORE REMO2015 simulations were driven by the ECMWF ERA-Interim reanalysis and the simulations were evaluated in terms of biases and skill scores over ten CORDEX Domains against the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) TS version 4.02, from 1981 to 2010, according to the regions defined by the K&#246;ppen&#8722;Trewartha (K&#8722;T) Climate Classification types. The REMO simulations have a relatively low mean annual temperature bias (about <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mo>&#177;</mo> <mrow> <mn>0.5</mn> </mrow> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> K) with low spatial standard deviation (about <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mo>&#177;</mo> <mrow> <mn>1.5</mn> </mrow> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> K) in the European, African, North and Central American, and Southeast Asian domains. The relative mean annual precipitation biases of REMO are below <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mo>&#177;</mo> <mn>50</mn> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula>% in most domains; however, spatial standard deviation varies from <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mo>&#177;</mo> <mn>30</mn> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula>% to <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mo>&#177;</mo> <mn>200</mn> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula>%. The REMO results simulated most climate types relatively well with lowest biases and highest skill score found in the boreal, temperate, and subtropical regions. In dry and polar regions, the REMO results simulated a relatively high annual biases of precipitation and temperature and low skill. Biases were traced to: missing or misrepresented processes, observational uncertainty, and uncertainties due to input boundary forcing.
ISSN:2073-4433