An assessment of temperature and precipitation change projections over Italy from recent global and regional climate model simulations

Abstract

ABSTRACT:We present an assessment of climate change projections over the Italian peninsula for the 21st century from the CMIP3 global and PRUDENCE regional model experiments. We consider the A2, A1B, B2 and B1 emission scenarios. The climate change signal over Italy varies seasonally, with maximum warming in summer (up to several°C ) and minimum in winter, decreased precipitation over the entire peninsula in summer (locally up to −40%) and a dipolar precipitation change pattern in winter (increase to the north and decrease to the south). Inter-annual variability increases in all seasons for precipitation and in summer for temperature, while it decreases for winter temperature. The seasonal temperature anomaly probability density functions (PDFs) show a shift as well as a broadening and flattening in future climate conditions, especially in summer. This implies larger increases for extreme hot seasons than mean summer temperatures. The seasonal precipitation anomaly PDFs are greatly affected in summer, with a strong increase of very dry seasons. Moreover, seasons with large precipitation amounts tend to increase in future climate conditions, i.e. we find an increase of very dry (drought prone) and very wet (flood prone) seasons. The magnitude of future climate change depends on the emission scenario and the temperature and precipitation change signals show substantial fine-scale structure in response to the topographical forcing of the Italian major mountain systems. In addition, the change signal is greater than the inter-model standard deviation for temperature in all seasons and for precipitation in the summer. Finally, the CMIP3 ensemble captures the observed 20th century trends of temperature and precipitation change over northern Italy. A broad agreement between the projections obtained with the CMIP3 and PRUDENCE ensembles is found, which adds robustness to the findings. Copyright  2009 Royal Meteorological Society KEY WORDS climate change projections over the Italian peninsula; seasonal temperature and precipitation anomaly; CMIP3; PRUDENCE

Numerical Simulation of the Period 1971–2100 over the Mediterranean Area with a Regional Model, Scenario SRES-A1B

“…In JJA, an opposite behavior occurs, since Spain and North Africa will experience the largest increase of temperature. It is worth noting that in both DJF and JJA seasons, Italy will be affected by a significant warming (about 4 • C), and this is consistent with the analyses provided in [32].…”

“…Concerning Italy, it is affected by a moderate increase in the northwestern part in DJF, while no significant changes are expected in southern Italy in DJF and in the whole domain in JJA. These results confirm only partially the findings reported in [32], so a deeper analysis at higher resolution over Italy was needed and described in [33].…”

Performance evaluation of high-resolution regional climate simulations in the Alpine space and analysis of extreme events

“…In fact, as reported in the SREX Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC, 2012], nowadays there is a need to provide solid science-based assessments of risks expected in different world regions as consequences of climate change in order to manage them in an adequate way in particular at regional and local scales. Two approaches are available for downscaling of global climate information: "dynamical" [Giorgi and Hewitson, 2001;Coppola and Giorgi, 2010] and "statistical" techniques [Schmidli et al, 2007]. One of the most effective tools, providing high-resolution climate analysis through dynamical downscaling, is represented by regional climate models (RCMs), which are able to provide an accurate description of climate variability on local scale, unlike general circulation models [Bellucci et al, 2008].…”

The Water Abstraction License Regime in Italy: A Case for Reform?

“…Nor do they consider changes in the demand for water driven by population growth and economic development. Since human-induced climate change will likely result in a lower average annual water availability and a greater intra-and inter-annual variability [35], the National Climate Adaptation Strategy for the Po River Basin District (PRBD) has suggested revising the WAL regimes [36]. From our analysis of the PRBD case study, we propose recommendations on priorities for a national water abstraction reform, in line with international best practices on water abstraction reform [37][38][39].…”