Abstract
AbstractThe aim of this work is to evaluate how the Regional Climate Model (RegCM4) is able to simulate the precipitation in Northeast Brazil (NEB). Therefore, high‐resolution (grid spacing of 20 km) simulations during the autumns of 1998 and 1999 were performed. The model was able to capture regional and inter‐annual differences of the precipitation in NEB. The RegCM4 simulations showed improved in the prediction concerning the intensity and spatial distribution of the rainfall, relative to the Era Interim reanalysis dataset. The experiment based on Emanuel MIT parameterization tends to overestimate the observed precipitation while the Grell experiment underestimates it.
Highlights
Results obtained with regional atmospheric models (Souza and Oyama, 2011) and General Circulation Models (GCMs) (Oyama and Nobre, 2004) show a systematic decrease of total precipitation and consequent change of the hydrologic cycle in Northeast Brazil (NEB) as a result of anthropogenic activities, such as the conversion of native vegetation to pasture
We address the following questions: (1) Can the Regional Climate Model version 4 (RegCM4) identify the differences in the observed precipitation during favorable and unfavorable large scale conditions?; (2) Can the model capture intraregional differences (East, Semiarid and North) of precipitation observed in NEB?
This work focuses the capability of the model simulating intra-regional aspects of the precipitation over NEB
Summary
Results obtained with regional atmospheric models (Souza and Oyama, 2011) and General Circulation Models (GCMs) (Oyama and Nobre, 2004) show a systematic decrease of total precipitation and consequent change of the hydrologic cycle in Northeast Brazil (NEB) as a result of anthropogenic activities, such as the conversion of native vegetation (caatinga) to pasture. The NEB is a region of high-climatic vulnerability, but with a booming economy, tourism and agribusiness being two of the main activities, which strongly depends on weather and climate. The NEB climate ranges from rainy tropical (coastland), with annual rainfall exceeding 2000 mm, to semiarid zones, where the annual rainfall does not exceed 300 mm It is affected by droughts at the interannual scale (Hastenrath and Heller, 1977; Moura and Shukla, 1981; Mo and Berbery, 2011) and by heavy rainfall events (Carvalho et al, 2004; Liebmann et al, 2011) at the synoptic scale, which occurs most frequently during La Nina and with greater intensity during El Nino years (Grimm and Tedeschi, 2009). Positive anomalies of precipitation occur during La Nina events and negative anomalies in El Nino years (Kousky et al, 1984; Coelho et al, 2002; De Souza and Ambrizzi, 2002)
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