Abstract
This paper investigates the temperature and precipitation extremes over the Arabian Peninsula using data from the regional climate model RegCM4 forced by three Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models and ERA–Interim reanalysis data. Indices of extremes are calculated using daily temperature and precipitation data at 27 meteorological stations located across Saudi Arabia in line with the suggested procedure from the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI) for the present climate (1986–2005) using 1981–2000 as the reference period. The results show that RegCM4 accurately captures the main features of temperature extremes found in surface observations. The results also show that RegCM4 with the CLM land–surface scheme performs better in the simulation of precipitation and minimum temperature, while the BATS scheme is better than CLM in simulating maximum temperature. Among the three CMIP5 models, the two best performing models are found to accurately reproduce the observations in calculating the extreme indices, while the other is not so successful. The reason for the good performance by these two models is that they successfully capture the circulation patterns and the humidity fields, which in turn influence the temperature and precipitation patterns that determine the extremes over the study region.
Highlights
In the past two decades, the evidence of climate change has become more obvious and it is widely accepted that, besides natural variability, human activities are significantly enhancing the change in climate [1]
In generating the daily temperature and precipitation data for the calculation of climate extremes indices over the Arabian Peninsula, the output from three Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models, namely ECHAM6 (Atmospheric Global Climate Model of Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Germany, resolution: 1.80◦ ×1.80◦ ), GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, USA, resolution: 2.50◦ × 2.00◦ ), and HadGEM (UK Met Office Hadley Centre Global Environment Model version 2, resolution: 1.875◦ ×1.25◦ ), are downscaled using REGional Climate Model version 4 (RegCM4.7) for the current climate (1960–2005)
The regional climate model data are generated with the input of three CMIP5 multi–model databases used in the preparation of AR5
Summary
In the past two decades, the evidence of climate change has become more obvious and it is widely accepted that, besides natural variability, human activities are significantly enhancing the change in climate [1]. According to the IPCC fourth assessment report (AR4), for the period 1956–2005, the global mean surface temperature (both land and ocean) increased by 0.13 ◦ C/decade [3] which was updated in AR5 to 0.12 ◦ C/decade for the period 1951–2012 [2]. The observations show that surface temperature over the Arabian Peninsula, in particular over Saudi Arabia (covering 80% of the peninsula), increased at a rate of 0.60 ◦ C/decade for the last three decades [4]. This large rate of increase in surface temperature over the Peninsula causes many temperature extremes in the region and indicates the need for a disaster management program [5]. In a recent study Almazroui et al [6] presented evidence that during the 21st century, temperature over the Peninsula will warm at a faster rate than over the larger
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