Changes in Extreme Events as Simulated by a High-Resolution Regional Climate Model for the Next 20–30 Years over China

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, the changes in temperature and precipitation extremes over the next 20–30 years (2021– 2050) in relative to the present day (1986–2005) under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B scenario are analyzed based on a high-resolution climate change simulation performed by a regional climate model (the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) RegCM3). The extreme indices of summer days (SU), frost days (FD), and growing season length (GSL) for temperature and simple daily intensity index (SDII), number of days with precipitation 10 mm d–1 (R10), and consecutive dry days (CDD) for precipitation are used as the indicators of the extremes. The results show that the indices simulated by RegCM3 in the present day show good agreement with the observed. A general increase in SU, a decrease in FD, and an increase in GSL are found to occur in the next 20–30 years over China. A general in-crease in SDII, an incre...