Abstract
This paper presents a consensus estimate of the changes in oceanic precipitation off the coast of Europe under increasing greenhouse gas emissions. An ensemble of regional climate models (RCMs) and three gauge and satellite-derived observational precipitation datasets are compared. While the fit between the RCMs’ simulation of current climate and the observations shows the consistency of the future-climate projections, uncertainties in both the models and the measurements need to be considered to generate a consensus estimate of the potential changes. Since oceanic precipitation is one of the factors affecting the thermohaline circulation, the feedback mechanisms of the changes in the net influx of freshwater from precipitation are relevant not only for improving oceanic-atmospheric coupled models but also to ascertain the climate signal in a global warming scenario.
Highlights
The importance of a precise estimation of oceanic precipitation derives from the freshening effect exerted on the oceanic surface
Original data come from rain gauge observations from over 17,000 stations from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) version 2 and the Climate Anomaly Monitoring System (CAMS) datasets
The US Climate Prediction Center’s Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) has made available monthly land and ocean estimates of global precipitation in which observations from rain gauges are merged with satellite precipitation estimates
Summary
The importance of a precise estimation of oceanic precipitation derives from the freshening effect exerted on the oceanic surface. Several studies have compared RCM simulations with observed climatologies [13,18,19,20] focusing on changes in mean seasonal values and interannual variability [14,21], including such data for precipitation [22,23] In these particular cases, comparisons for present or future climate [24] are often done against CRU (climatic research unit) data [25,26]. PRUDENCE RCM simulations cover a specific interval (1960–1990; cf Section 2.2 below for the reason of such specific dates), so the comparison has to be limited to the satellite-models overlapping period This is not optimum, since the observational data includes infrared (IR) estimates which are known to be indirect, but it is a required compromise
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