Pan-European climate at convection-permitting scale: a model intercomparison study

Abstract

We investigate the effect of using convection-permitting models (CPMs) spanning a pan-European domain on the representation of precipitation distribution at a climatic scale. In particular we compare two 2.2km models with two 12km models run by ETH Zürich (ETH-12 km and ETH-2.2 km) and the Met-Office (UKMO-12 km and UKMO-2.2 km).The two CPMs yield qualitatively similar differences to the precipitation climatology compared to the 12 km models, despite using different dynamical cores and different parameterization packages. A quantitative analysis confirms that the CPMs give the largest differences compared to 12 km models in the hourly precipitation distribution in regions and seasons where convection is a key process: in summer across the whole of Europe and in autumn over the Mediterranean Sea and coasts. Mean precipitation is increased over high orography, with an increased amplitude of the diurnal cycle. We highlight that both CPMs show an

Extreme precipitation over East Asia under 1.5 °C and 2 °C global warming targets: a comparison of stabilized and overshoot projections

“…Moreover, low-resolution global models have limitations in exploring extreme precipitation at regional scales, particularly over complex terrain. Convection-permitting models are recommended and hoped to be used in future studies of extreme precipitation (Rasmussen et al 2017, Berthou et al 2018.…”

Subhourly rainfall in a convection-permitting model

“…The greatest added value of CPMs is found in their representation of precipitation [6], in particular subdaily convective extremes. At the hourly scale, CPMs greatly improve the representation of intense summertime precipitation events: in terms of their spatial patterns, intensities and temperature scaling [3,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. While CPMs have been shown to reduce the wet hour frequency bias [13], they may still overestimate the fractional contribution of intense events to total precipitation, with biases in the fractional contributions of light to moderate events seemingly regionally dependent [8].…”

“…At the hourly scale, CPMs greatly improve the representation of intense summertime precipitation events: in terms of their spatial patterns, intensities and temperature scaling [3,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. While CPMs have been shown to reduce the wet hour frequency bias [13], they may still overestimate the fractional contribution of intense events to total precipitation, with biases in the fractional contributions of light to moderate events seemingly regionally dependent [8]. CPMs also reduce the 'drizzle problem' found in coarser models [7], whereby light rainfall is too persistent, and tend to more realistically represent the frequency of short intense events [3,8].…”

Larger Future Intensification of Rainfall in the West African Sahel in a Convection‐Permitting Model

“…Higher resolution convection‐permitting regional climate models (CPRCMs) are more successful at representing MCSs and the diurnal cycle of convection and provide a more realistic representation of precipitation extremes (Birch et al, ; Marsham et al, ; Maurer et al, ; Prein et al, ). They also improve the whole precipitation distribution where these processes represent a large share of total precipitation (e.g., Mediterranean, Berthou et al, ; United States, Prein et al, ; West Africa, Berthou et al, ; and East Africa, Finney et al, ).…”