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On the added value of regional climate modeling in climate change assessment

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Abstract

Regional climate models represent a promising tool to assess the regional dimension of future climate change and are widely used in climate impact research. While the added value of regional climate models has been highlighted with respect to a better representation of land-surface interactions and atmospheric processes, it is still unclear whether radiative heating implies predictability down to the typical scale of a regional climate model. As a quantitative assessment, we apply an optimal statistical filter to compare the coherence between observed and simulated patterns of Mediterranean climate change from a global and a regional climate model. It is found that the regional climate model has indeed an added value in the detection of regional climate change, contrary to former assumptions. The optimal filter may also serve as a weighting factor in multi-model averaging.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Climatic Research Unit for providing the observational data. The considered model simulations were realized in the framework of the IMPETUS project funded by the Federal German Minister of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant No. 07 GWK 02 and by the Ministry of Education, Science and Research (MSWF) of the Federal State of Northrhine-Westfalia under grant No. 223-21200200.

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  1. Institute of Geography and Geology, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Würzburg, Germany

    Heiko Paeth & Birgit Mannig

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  1. Heiko Paeth
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  2. Birgit Mannig
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Correspondence to Heiko Paeth.

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Paeth, H., Mannig, B. On the added value of regional climate modeling in climate change assessment. Clim Dyn 41, 1057–1066 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1517-7

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