Abstract
Climate models tend to overestimate light precipitation and underestimate heavy precipitation due to low model resolution. This work investigated the impact of model resolution on simulating the precipitation extremes over China during 1995–2014, based on five models from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6), each having low- and high-resolution versions. Six extreme indices were employed: simple daily intensity index (SDII), wet days (WD), total precipitation (PRCPTOT), extreme precipitation amount (R95p), heavy precipitation days (R20mm), and consecutive dry days (CDD). Models with high resolution demonstrated better performance in reproducing the pattern of climatological precipitation extremes over China, especially in the western Sichuan Basin along the eastern side of the Tibetan Plateau (D1), South China (D2), and the Yangtze-Yellow River basins (D3). Decreased biases of precipitation exist in all high-resolution models over D1, with the largest decease in root mean square error (RMSE) being 48.4% in CNRM-CM6. The improvement could be attributed to fewer weak precipitation events (0 mm/day–10 mm/day) in high-resolution models in comparison with their counterparts with low resolutions. In addition, high-resolution models also show smaller biases over D2, which is associated with better capturing of the distribution of daily precipitation frequency and improvement of the simulation of the vertical distribution of moisture content.
Highlights
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Abstract: Climate models tend to overestimate light precipitation and underestimate heavy precipitation due to low model resolution
Based on five state-of-the-art Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) models, with each having a pair of high-resolution and low-resolution configurations, we aim to study the impact of model resolution on their fidelity in simulating the precipitation extremes over China in this study
Based on five CMIP6 models, each having a pair of high-resolution and low-resolution configurations, the difference between low-resolution models and high-resolution models in representing the spatial pattern of climatological precipitation extremes over China during 1995–2014 was compared
Summary
State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Abstract: Climate models tend to overestimate light precipitation and underestimate heavy precipitation due to low model resolution. This work investigated the impact of model resolution on simulating the precipitation extremes over China during 1995–2014, based on five models from. High-resolution models show smaller biases over D2, which is associated with better capturing of the distribution of daily precipitation frequency and improvement of the simulation of the vertical distribution of moisture content. On 6–7 May 2017, the coastal city of Guangzhou experienced severe extreme precipitation with maximum rainfall above 500 mm in one day, eventually causing enormous economic losses [2]. On 20 July 2021, Zhengzhou experienced a recordbreaking torrential rainfall of above 200 mm within one hour, eventually causing direct economic losses amounting to 53.2 billion yuan [4]. The best way to improve the ability of climate models to simulate or project precipitation extremes has received a lot of attention from the climate community
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