Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Van de Vyver, Hans
• Van Schaeybroeck, Bert
• De Troch, Rozemien
• De Cruz, Lesley
• Hamdi, Rafiq
• Villanueva-Birriel, Cecille
• Marbaix, Philippe
• van Ypersele, Jean-Pascal
• Wouters, Hendrik
• Broucke, Sam Vanden
• van Lipzig, Nicole P. M.
• Doutreloup, Sébastien
• Wyard, Coraline
• Scholzen, Chloé
• Fettweis, Xavier
• Caluwaerts, Steven
• Termonia, Piet

Titel

Evaluation Framework for Subdaily Rainfall Extremes Simulated by Regional Climate Model

Ist Teil von

• Journal of applied meteorology and climatology, 2021-10, Vol.60 (10), p.1423-1442

Ort / Verlag

American Meteorological Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Subdaily precipitation extremes are high-impact events that can result in flash floods, sewer system overload, or landslides. Several studies have reported an intensification of projected short-duration extreme rainfall in a warmer future climate. Traditionally, regional climate models (RCMs) are run at a coarse resolution using deep-convection parameterization for these extreme events. As computational resources are continuously ramping up, these models are run at convection-permitting resolution, thereby partly resolving the small-scale precipitation events explicitly. To date, a comprehensive evaluation of convection-permitting models is still missing. We propose an evaluation strategy for simulated subdaily rainfall extremes that summarizes the overall RCM performance. More specifically, the following metrics are addressed: the seasonal/diurnal cycle, temperature and humidity dependency, temporal scaling, and spatiotemporal clustering. The aim of this paper is as follows: (i) to provide a statistical modeling framework for some of the metrics, based on extreme value analysis, (ii) to apply the evaluation metrics to a microensemble of convection-permitting RCM simulations over Belgium against high-frequency observations, and (iii) to investigate the added value of convection-permitting scales with respect to coarser 12-km resolution. We find that convection-permitting models improved precipitation extremes on shorter time scales (i.e., hourly or 2 hourly), but not on 6–24-h time scales. Some metrics such as the diurnal cycle or the Clausius–Clapeyron rate are improved by convection-permitting models, whereas the seasonal cycle appears to be robust across spatial scales. On the other hand, the spatial dependence is poorly represented at both convection-permitting scales and coarser scales. Our framework provides perspectives for improving high-resolution atmospheric numerical modeling and datasets for hydrological applications.