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Regional climate simulations for the European Alpine Region—sensitivity of precipitation to large-scale flow conditions of driving input data

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Abstract

The MM5 modelling system has been used to perform regional climate simulations over Western Europe on a 45-km grid for the years 1971 to 2000. We focus our analysis on the impact of the driving input data on simulated precipitation in the Alpine area. Using ERA40 reanalysis data, the MM5 climatology of precipitation compares reasonably well with an observational climatology for the Alpine region. Switching to an ECHAM5 climate simulation as driving data induces excessive overprediction by up to 80% in the colder seasons there, primarily over the Alpine slopes. The large-scale flow provided by the global datasets revealed moderate differences indicating an increased number of low-pressure systems travelling from the Atlantic into the Alpine region for ECHAM5 compared with ERA40. Mean seasonal 700-hPa wind speeds correspondingly showed higher values for the ECHAM5 driven simulation in the central Alps. Partitioning three-hourly 700-hPa winds according to direction and speed in the central Alps specifically revealed a distinct shift to stronger westerly and north-westerly winds. Furthermore, aggregating three-hourly rainfall amounts to the same wind direction and wind speed intervals as for the wind statistics revealed strongly intensified precipitation due to the overly intense westerly winds, implying too intense orographic precipitation enhancement.

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Acknowledgements

The presented study was funded by the German Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF) in the framework of the project GLOWA. The authors are also grateful to the ECMWF and the MPI/Hamburg for providing the ERA40 data and the ECHAM5 simulation results for the years of 1971 to 2000, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Meteorologisches Institut der Universität München, Theresienstraße 37, 80333, Munich, Germany

    Andreas Pfeiffer

  2. Deutscher Wetterdienst, Frankfurter Straße 135, 63067, Offenbach, Germany

    Günther Zängl

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  1. Andreas Pfeiffer
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  2. Günther Zängl
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Correspondence to Andreas Pfeiffer.

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Pfeiffer, A., Zängl, G. Regional climate simulations for the European Alpine Region—sensitivity of precipitation to large-scale flow conditions of driving input data. Theor Appl Climatol 105, 325–340 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-010-0394-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-010-0394-4

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