Analysis of future changes in short-term rainfall characteristics in the High Tatras Region in Slovakia

Abstract

The paper focuses on the analysis of future changes in short-term rainfall characteristics in the High Tatras region. The analysis was performed at three climatological stations, namely: Podbanské, Tatranská Lomnica, Javorina. The area is located in the northern part of Slovakia in a mountainous region which belongs to a mountain climate with characteristic long cold winters and short summers with heavy rainfalls (June, July). The future changes were analysed from the predicted short-term rainfall intensities using the Community Land Model. The Community Land Model was a multidisciplinary project between scientists from several working groups in the USA. The model uses ecological climatology concepts, which explains the impacts of changes in vegetation on the climate. The model well relates to the current processes in the atmosphere; it is a semi-pessimistic scenario with a predicted global temperature increase is about 2.9 °C by the year 2100. The focus of the paper was put on the changes in seasonality, trend analysis. The analysed rainfall durations were available from 60 minutes up to 1440 minutes for the future period 2041-2100. The results were compared with the simulated data from the historical period 1961-2020. The analysis is focused on the seasonality changes in extreme rainfall which was analysed by Burn’s vector methodology, then the trend testing provided by the Mann-Kendall trend testing method. Results show that there is a change in the short-term rainfall intensities characteristics for the future period, the seasonality of extreme rainfall intensities shows a shift to an earlier time period of the year, future trends are also showing increasing change compared to the historical period.