High-Resolution Climate Change Impact Analysis on Medium-Sized River Catchments in Germany: An Ensemble Assessment

Abstract

Abstract The impact of climate change on three small- to medium-sized river catchments (Ammer, Mulde, and Ruhr) in Germany is investigated for the near future (2021–50) following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B scenario. A 10-member ensemble of hydrological model (HM) simulations, based on two high-resolution regional climate models (RCMs) driven by two global climate models (GCMs), with three realizations of ECHAM5 (E5) and one realization of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis version 3 (CCCma3; C3) is established. All GCM simulations are downscaled by the RCM Community Land Model (CLM), and one realization of E5 is downscaled also with the RCM Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). This concerted 7-km, high-resolution RCM ensemble provides a sound basis for runoff simulations of small catchments and is currently unique for Germany. The hydrology for each catchment is simulated in an overlapping scheme, with two of the three HMs used in the project. The resulting ensemble hence contains for each chain link (GCM–realization–RCM–HM) at least two members and allows the investigation of qualitative and limited quantitative indications of the existence and uncertainty range of the change signal. The ensemble spread in the climate change signal is large and varies with catchment and season, and the results show that most of the uncertainty of the change signal arises from the natural variability in winter and from the RCMs in summer.