Regional climate projection over South Korea simulated by the HadGEM2-AO and WRF model chain under RCP emission scenarios

Abstract

This study assesses the regional climate projection newly generated within the framework of the national downscaling project in South Korea. To obtain fine-scale climate information (12.5 km), dynamical downscaling of the HadGEM2-AO global projections forced by the representative concentration pathway (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) scenarios is performed using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) modeling system. Changes in temperature and precipitation in terms of long-term trends, daily characteristics and extremes are presented by comparing two 30 yr periods (2041−2070 vs. 2071−2100) in which increasing rates of emission forcing between the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios are relatively similar and quite different, respectively. The temperature increase presents a relevant trend, but the degree of warming varies in different periods and emission scenarios. While the temperature distribution from the RCP8.5 projection is continuously shifted toward warmer conditions by the end of the 21st century, the RCP4.5 projection appears to stabilize warming in accordance with emission forcing. This shift in distribution directly affects the magnitude of extremes, which enhances extreme hot days but reduces extreme cold days. Precipitation changes, however, do not respond monotonically to emission forcing, as they exhibit less sensitivity to different emission scenarios. An enhancement of high intensity precipitation and a reduction of weak intensity precipitation are discernible, implying an intensified hydrologic cycle. Changes in return levels of annual maximum precipitation suggest an increased probability of extreme precipitation with 20 yr and 50 yr return periods.

The Köppen‐Trewartha Climate‐Type Changes Over the CORDEX‐East Asia Phase 2 Domain Under 2 and 3 °C Global Warming

“…However, GCMs have a weak point in resolution for reflecting the realistic impacts of local forcing with detailed topography or land use types Choi et al, 2016;Im et al, 2006Im et al, , 2007Im et al, , 2015Lee & Hong, 2014). Therefore, numerous dynamically downscaled climate change assessments at the target GWL based on the regional climate model (RCM) have actively been carried out in line with the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) project: Donnelly et al (2017), Dosio and Fischer (2018), Jacob et al (2018), and Marx et al (2018) for the EURO-COREX domain;and, Nikulin et al (2018), Maúre et al (2018), Mba et al (2018), and Lennard et al (2018) over the CORDEX-Africa domain.…”

Impact of the spatial variability of daily precipitation on hydrological projections: A comparison of GCM‐ and RCM‐driven cases in the Han River basin, Korea

“…The domain of both RCMs covers Northeast Asian in the centre of the Korean Peninsula (37.5°N and 127.5°E) with a horizontal resolution of 12.5 km. More detailed descriptions of RegCM and WRF and their basic performance can be found in Oh and Suh () and Im, Ahn, and Jo (), respectively. HadGEM projections were generated within the framework of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5; Taylor, Stouffer, & Meehl, ), and its downscaled projections focusing on the Korean Peninsula have played an important role in assessing future climate change at the national standard level in South Korea (KMA, ).…”

Assessment and prediction of the first‐flowering dates for the major fruit trees in Korea using a multi‐RCM ensemble

“…However, the dynamically downscaled data with 50‐km resolution remains incapable of capturing complicated physiographical features and evaluating the regional impacts of climate change (Im et al , ). For instance, Im et al () and Lee and Hong () revealed that the data downscaled into a rather coarse resolution (larger than 50‐km grid spacing) fails to capture climate extremes even if it is well simulated by RCMs at higher resolutions of 12.5 and 20 km.…”

“…For instance, Im et al () and Lee and Hong () revealed that the data downscaled into a rather coarse resolution (larger than 50‐km grid spacing) fails to capture climate extremes even if it is well simulated by RCMs at higher resolutions of 12.5 and 20 km. On this research foundation, the Korean national downscaling project, which aims to produce 12.5 km fine‐scale climate multi‐model ensemble (MME) information over north‐eastern Asia with five different RCMs under the same driving fields (HadGEM2‐AO), has been conducted for the last 3 years (March 2013 to February 2015) as the next step in the CORDEX experiments (Im et al , ). Although the data sets have not yet been released to the general public, the data set has been recognized as one of national scenarios under global warming.…”