California Wintertime Precipitation Bias in Regional and Global Climate Models

Abstract In this paper, wintertime precipitation from a variety of observational datasets, regional climate models (RCMs), and general circulation models (GCMs) is averaged over the state of California and compared. Several averaging methodologies are considered and all are found to give similar values when the model grid spacing is less than 3°. This suggests that California is a reasonable size for regional intercomparisons using modern GCMs. Results show that reanalysis-forced RCMs tend to significantly overpredict California precipitation. This appears to be due mainly to the overprediction of extreme events; RCM precipitation frequency is generally underpredicted. Overprediction is also reflected in wintertime precipitation variability, which tends to be too high for RCMs on both daily and interannual scales. Wintertime precipitation in most (but not all) GCMs is underestimated. This is in contrast to previous studies based on global blended gauge–satellite observations, which are shown here to under...

[1]  Jennifer C. Adam,et al.  Adjustment of global gridded precipitation for systematic bias , 2003 .

[2]  P. Mote,et al.  Review of scenario selection and downscaling methods for the assessment of climate change impacts on hydrology in the United States pacific northwest , 2007 .

[3]  B. Machenhauer,et al.  Very High-Resolution Regional Climate Simulations over Scandinavia—Present Climate , 1998 .

[4]  S. Solomon,et al.  How Often Does It Rain , 2006 .

[5]  D. Randall,et al.  Effects of model resolution and subgrid-scale physics on the simulation of precipitation in the continental United States , 2004 .

[6]  Y. Qian,et al.  The Sensitivity of Precipitation and Snowpack Simulations to Model Resolution via Nesting in Regions of Complex Terrain , 2003 .

[7]  A. Staniforth,et al.  Regional modeling: A theoretical discussion , 1997 .

[8]  Willem A. Landman,et al.  Climate change 2007 : the physical science basis, S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, M. Marquis, K. Averyt, M.M.B. Tignor, H. LeRoy Miller, Jr. and Z. Chen (Eds.) : book review , 2010 .

[9]  Tim N. Palmer,et al.  Extended range predictions with ECMWF models : influence of horizontal resolution on systematic error and forecast skill , 1990 .

[10]  Eric F. Wood,et al.  Predicting the Discharge of Global Rivers , 2001, Journal of Climate.

[11]  Kenneth J. Westrick,et al.  Does Increasing Horizontal Resolution Produce More Skillful Forecasts , 2002 .

[12]  Renate Hagedorn,et al.  Strategies: Revolution in Climate Prediction is Both Necessary and Possible: A Declaration at the World Modelling Summit for Climate Prediction , 2009 .

[13]  David R. Legates,et al.  A climatology of global precipitation , 1987 .

[14]  P. Xie,et al.  Global Precipitation: A 17-Year Monthly Analysis Based on Gauge Observations, Satellite Estimates, and Numerical Model Outputs , 1997 .

[15]  D. Easterling,et al.  1996: Reducing biases in estimates of precipitation over the United States: Phase 3 adjustments , 1996 .

[16]  J. Roads,et al.  U.S. Climate Sensitivity Simulated with the NCEP Regional Spectral Model , 2004 .

[17]  Richard G. Jones,et al.  An inter-comparison of regional climate models for Europe: model performance in present-day climate , 2007 .

[18]  Y. Qian,et al.  Intercomparison of Global Reanalyses and Regional Simulations of Cold Season Water Budgets in the Western United States , 2003 .

[19]  D. Lettenmaier,et al.  Production of Temporally Consistent Gridded Precipitation and Temperature Fields for the Continental United States , 2005 .

[20]  J. Pal,et al.  On the role of resolution and topography in the simulation of East Asia precipitation , 2006 .

[21]  A. Dai.  Precipitation Characteristics in Eighteen Coupled Climate Models , 2006 .

[22]  Peter J. Gleckler,et al.  Evaluation of continental precipitation in 20th century climate simulations: The utility of multimodel statistics , 2006 .

[23]  M. Kanamitsu,et al.  NCEP–DOE AMIP-II Reanalysis (R-2) , 2002 .

[24]  C. Daly,et al.  A Statistical-Topographic Model for Mapping Climatological Precipitation over Mountainous Terrain , 1994 .

[25]  T. Phillips.  On The Reproducibility of Seasonal Land-surface Climate , 2004 .

[26]  Corinne Le Quéré,et al.  Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis , 2013 .

[27]  V. Pope,et al.  The processes governing horizontal resolution sensitivity in a climate model , 2002 .

[28]  K. Taylor,et al.  High-resolution simulations of global climate, part 1: present climate , 2003 .

[29]  P. Xie,et al.  An Intercomparison of Gauge Observations and Satellite Estimates of Monthly Precipitation , 1995 .

[30]  Brian A. Colle,et al.  MM5 precipitation verification over the pacific northwest during the 1997-99 cool seasons , 2000 .

[31]  M. Rojas.  Multiply Nested Regional Climate Simulation for Southern South America: Sensitivity to Model Resolution , 2006 .

[32]  D. Legates,et al.  Mean seasonal and spatial variability in gauge‐corrected, global precipitation , 1990 .

[33]  Govindasamy Bala,et al.  Evaluation of a WRF dynamical downscaling simulation over California , 2008 .

[34]  R. Arritt,et al.  Simulations of Present and Future Climates in the Western United States with Four Nested Regional Climate Models , 2006 .

[35]  J. Dudhia,et al.  Simulation of seasonal snowfall over Colorado , 2010 .

[36]  Č. Branković,et al.  Impact of horizontal resolution on seasonal integrations , 2001 .

[37]  P. Duffy,et al.  Present and future surface climate in the western USA as simulated by 15 global climate models , 2004 .

[38]  T. D. Mitchell,et al.  An improved method of constructing a database of monthly climate observations and associated high‐resolution grids , 2005 .

[39]  J. Pal,et al.  RegCM3 regional climatologies for South America using reanalysis and ECHAM global model driving fields , 2007 .

[40]  F. Giorgi,et al.  Resolution effects on regional climate model simulations of seasonal precipitation over Europe , 2010 .

[41]  S. Ghan,et al.  A subgrid parameterization of orographic precipitation , 1995 .

[42]  F. Giorgi,et al.  A Investigation of the Sensitivity of Simulated Precipitation to Model Resolution and Its Implications for Climate Studies , 1996 .

[43]  Philip W. Jones.  First- and Second-Order Conservative Remapping Schemes for Grids in Spherical Coordinates , 1999 .

[44]  T. J. Breen,et al.  Biostatistical Analysis (2nd ed.). , 1986 .

[45]  F. Giorgi,et al.  Multiyear simulation of the African climate using a regional climate model (RegCM3) with the high resolution ERA-interim reanalysis , 2010 .