Abstract
This study evaluates 32 climate models from CMIP5 compared with a daily gridded observation dataset of extreme precipitation indices including total extreme precipitation (R95p), maximum consecutive five days of precipitation (RX5day) and wet days larger than 10 mm of precipitation (R10mm) over Northern China during the historical period (1986–2005). Results show the majority models have good performance on spatial distribution but overestimate the amplitude of precipitation over Northern China. Most models can also capture interannual variation of R95p and RX5d, but with poor simulations on R10mm. Considering both spatial and temporal factors, the best multi-model ensemble (Group 1) has been selected and improved by 42%, 34%, and 37% for R95p, RX5d, and R10mm, respectively. Projection of extreme precipitation indicates that the fastest-rising region is in Northwest China due to the enhanced rainfall intensity. However, the uncertainty analysis shows the increase of extreme rainfall over Northwest China has a low confidence level. The projection of increasing extreme rainfall over Northeast China from Group 1 due to the longer extreme rainfall days is more credible. The weak subtropical high and southwest winds from Arabian Sea lead to the low wet biases from Group 1 and the cyclonic anomalies over Northeast China, which result in more extreme precipitation.
Highlights
Global warming has had a profound impact on climate change in recent years regarding the mean climate system and regarding extreme events
Several studies have investigated the future change of extreme events over China under different emission scenarios based on the simulations of global climate models from Coupled Model Inter-Comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) [9,10,11,12]
Each climate model and the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble are evaluated over Northern China during the reference period (1986–2005)
Summary
Global warming has had a profound impact on climate change in recent years regarding the mean climate system and regarding extreme events. Many studies have found regional climate changes are more complex. China is a vulnerable region of great concern affected by the East Asian monsoon and complex topography. This country is susceptible to extreme precipitation events. Several studies have investigated the future change of extreme events over China under different emission scenarios based on the simulations of global climate models from Coupled Model Inter-Comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) [9,10,11,12]. Previous studies have focused on the projection of extreme rainfall events over all of China using the climate model ensembles and paid more attention to Southeast China. The ecological environment of Atmosphere 2019, 10, 691; doi:10.3390/atmos10110691 www.mdpi.com/journal/atmosphere
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