Empirical‐statistical downscaling and error correction of daily precipitation from regional climate models

Although regional climate models (RCMs) are powerful tools for describing regional and even smaller scale climate conditions, they still feature severe systematic errors. In order to provide optimized climate scenarios for climate change impact research, this study merges linear and nonlinear empirical‐statistical downscaling techniques with bias correction methods and investigates their ability for reducing RCM error characteristics. An ensemble of seven empirical‐statistical downscaling and error correction methods (DECMs) is applied to post‐process daily precipitation sums of a high‐resolution regional climate hindcast simulation over the Alpine region, their error characteristics are analysed and compared to the raw RCM results.

[1]  G. Brier,et al.  Some applications of statistics to meteorology , 1958 .

[2]  Dario Camuffo Cumulated frequency distribution of daily global solar radiation at Venice, Italy , 1978 .

[3]  F. Giorgi,et al.  Approaches to the simulation of regional climate change: A review , 1991 .

[4]  H. Storch,et al.  Analysis of climate variability : applications of statistical techniques : proceedings of an autumn school organized by the Commission of the European Community on Elba from October 30 to November 6, 1993 , 1995 .

[5]  Ulrich Cubasch,et al.  Estimates of climate change in Southern Europe derived from dynamical climate model output , 1996 .

[6]  Upmanu Lall,et al.  A Nearest Neighbor Bootstrap For Resampling Hydrologic Time Series , 1996 .

[7]  I. T. Jolliffe,et al.  Analysis of Climate Variability. Applications of Statistical Techniques , 1997 .

[8]  T. Wigley,et al.  Downscaling general circulation model output: a review of methods and limitations , 1997 .

[9]  Robert L. Wilby,et al.  NON‐STATIONARITY IN DAILY PRECIPITATION SERIES: IMPLICATIONS FOR GCM DOWN‐SCALING USING ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION INDICES , 1997 .

[10]  P. Jones,et al.  Predicting rainfall statistics in England and Wales using atmospheric circulation variables , 1998 .

[11]  T. A. Buishand,et al.  Simulation of extreme precipitation in the Rhine basin by nearest-neighbour resampling , 1998 .

[12]  C. Thompson,et al.  A Comparison of Statistical and Model-Based Downscaling Techniques for Estimating Local Climate Variations. , 1998 .

[13]  C. Schär,et al.  A PRECIPITATION CLIMATOLOGY OF THE ALPS FROM HIGH-RESOLUTION RAIN-GAUGE OBSERVATIONS , 1998 .

[14]  H. Storch,et al.  The Analog Method as a Simple Statistical Downscaling Technique: Comparison with More Complicated Methods , 1999 .

[15]  F. Giorgi,et al.  Introduction to special section : Regional climate modeling revisited , 1999 .

[16]  M. Coleman Views from the alps: Regional perspectives on climate change , 1999 .

[17]  H. Storch On the Use of “Inflation” in Statistical Downscaling , 1999 .

[18]  James M. Murphy,et al.  An Evaluation of Statistical and Dynamical Techniques for Downscaling Local Climate , 1999 .

[19]  R. Huth Statistical downscaling in central Europe: evaluation of methods and potential predictors , 1999 .

[20]  J. Buma,et al.  Modelling future landslide activity based on general circulation models , 1999 .

[21]  H. Storch,et al.  Statistical Analysis in Climate Research , 2000 .

[22]  T. Wigley,et al.  Precipitation predictors for downscaling: observed and general circulation model relationships , 2000 .

[23]  Gerrit Hoogenboom,et al.  The impact of climate variability and change on crop yield in Bulgaria , 2000 .

[24]  K. Taylor Summarizing multiple aspects of model performance in a single diagram , 2001 .

[25]  S. Pryor,et al.  Downscaling temperature and precipitation: a comparison of regression‐based methods and artificial neural networks , 2001 .

[26]  Michael D. Dettinger,et al.  Simulated Hydrologic Responses to Climate Variations and Change in the Merced, Carson, and American River Basins, Sierra Nevada, California, 1900–2099 , 2001 .

[27]  M. Clarkb,et al.  Use of statistically and dynamically downscaled atmospheric model output for hydrologic simulations in three mountainous basins in the western United States , 2003 .

[28]  R. Arritt,et al.  Temporal–Spatial Scales of Observed and Simulated Precipitation in Central U.S. Climate , 2003 .

[29]  J. Beersma,et al.  Multi-site simulation of daily precipitation and temperature conditional on the atmospheric circulation , 2003 .

[30]  Eric P. Salathe,et al.  Comparison of various precipitation downscaling methods for the simulation of streamflow in a rainshadow river basin , 2003 .

[31]  Jon Sáenz,et al.  Improved field reconstruction with the analog method: searching the CCA space , 2003 .

[32]  H. Formayer,et al.  Comparative analysis of spatial and seasonal variability: Austrian precipitation during the 20th century , 2003 .

[33]  C. Bretherton,et al.  Statistical Precipitation Downscaling over the Northwestern United States Using Numerically Simulated Precipitation as a Predictor , 2003 .

[34]  Jesper Heile Christensen,et al.  Daily precipitation statistics in regional climate models: Evaluation and intercomparison for the European Alps , 2003 .

[35]  Pier Luigi Vidale,et al.  Evaluation of water and energy budgets in regional climate models applied over Europe , 2004 .

[36]  D. Lettenmaier,et al.  Hydrologic Implications of Dynamical and Statistical Approaches to Downscaling Climate Model Outputs , 2004 .

[37]  L. Ruby Leung,et al.  Regional climate modeling: Progress, challenges, and prospects , 2004 .

[38]  R. Benestad,et al.  An improvement of analog model strategy for more reliable local climate change scenarios , 2005 .

[39]  A. Sterl,et al.  The ERA‐40 re‐analysis , 2005 .

[40]  Chong-Yu Xu,et al.  Statistical precipitation downscaling in central Sweden with the analogue method , 2005 .

[41]  R. Mehrotra,et al.  Conditional resampling of hydrologic time series using multiple predictor variables: A K-nearest neighbour approach , 2006 .

[42]  C. Frei,et al.  Downscaling from GCM precipitation: a benchmark for dynamical and statistical downscaling methods , 2006 .

[43]  J. Hansen,et al.  Bias correction of daily GCM rainfall for crop simulation studies , 2006 .

[44]  F. Feser,et al.  Enhanced Detectability of Added Value in Limited-Area Model Results Separated into Different Spatial Scales , 2006 .

[45]  Research for Climate Protection: Model Run Evaluation , 2006 .

[46]  R. Leander,et al.  Resampling of regional climate model output for the simulation of extreme river flows , 2007 .

[47]  H. Fowler,et al.  Using regional climate model data to simulate historical and future river flows in northwest England , 2007 .

[48]  Julien Boé,et al.  Statistical and dynamical downscaling of the Seine basin climate for hydro‐meteorological studies , 2007 .

[49]  Michele Brunetti,et al.  HISTALP—historical instrumental climatological surface time series of the Greater Alpine Region , 2007 .

[50]  Torben Schmith,et al.  Statistical and dynamical downscaling of precipitation: An evaluation and comparison of scenarios for the European Alps , 2007 .

[51]  Bengt Carlsson,et al.  Assessing climate change impacts on hydrology from an ensemble of regional climate models, model scales and linking methods – a case study on the Lule River basin , 2007 .

[52]  Hayley J. Fowler,et al.  Linking climate change modelling to impacts studies: recent advances in downscaling techniques for hydrological modelling , 2007 .

[53]  Deliang L. Chen,et al.  Empirical-Statistical Downscaling , 2008 .

[54]  Andrew W. Robertson,et al.  Weather Types and Rainfall over Senegal. Part I: Observational Analysis , 2008 .

[55]  Andrew W. Robertson,et al.  Weather Types and Rainfall over Senegal. Part II: Downscaling of GCM Simulations , 2008 .

[56]  C. Frei,et al.  High Resolution Sensitivity Studies with the Regional Climate Model CCLM in the Alpine Region , 2008 .

[57]  B. Ahrens,et al.  Precipitation by a regional climate model and bias correction in Europe and South Asia , 2008 .

[58]  H. Storch,et al.  Influence of similarity measures on the performance of the analog method for downscaling daily precipitation , 2008 .

[59]  Downscaling Temperature and Precipitation from NARR Reanalysis for Glacier Modelling , 2009 .

[60]  William W. Hsieh Machine Learning Methods in the Environmental Sciences: Contents , 2009 .

[61]  C. Piani,et al.  Statistical bias correction for daily precipitation in regional climate models over Europe , 2010 .

[62]  D. Jacob,et al.  Error characteristics of high resolution regional climate models over the Alpine area , 2011 .