Regional climate projections of mean and extreme climate for the southwest of Western Australia (1970–1999 compared to 2030–2059)

Andrys, Julia; Kala, Jatin; Lyons, Thomas J.

doi:10.1007/s00382-016-3169-5

Cited by 56 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…The greatest precipitation reduction has occurred during the winter months, with winter declines ranging from 30% to 50% from 1969 to 2012 for most of the region (Indian Ocean Climate Initiative 2012). Regional climate projections for the southwest region show a continued, consistent reduction in winter rainfall and overall warming over the coming decades (Andrys et al 2017). In 2010, southwestern Australia experienced its driest winter in recorded history (42% below the long-term average, Cai et al 2011), which was followed by the hottest year on record in 2011, driven by a series of intense heat waves (Bureau of Meteorology 2012).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chronic historical drought legacy exacerbates tree mortality and crown dieback during acute heatwave-compounded drought

Matusick

Ruthrof

Kala

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Globally, combinations of drought and warming are driving widespread tree mortality and crown dieback. Yet thresholds triggering either tree mortality or crown dieback remain uncertain, particularly with respect to two issues: (i) the degree to which heat waves, as an acute stress, can trigger mortality, and (ii) the degree to which chronic historical drought can have legacy effects on these processes. Using forest study sites in southwestern Australia that experienced dieback associated with a short-term drought with a heatwave (heatwave-compounded drought) in 2011 and span a gradient in long-term precipitation (LTP) change, we examined the potential for chronic historical drought to amplify tree mortality or crown dieback during a heatwave-compounded drought event for the dominant overstory species Eucalyptus marginata and Corymbia calophylla. We show pronounced legacy effects associated with chronically reduced LTP (1951LTP ( -1980LTP ( versus 1981LTP ( -2010 at the tree level in both study species. When comparing areas experiencing 7.0% and 11.5% decline in LTP, the probability of tree mortality increased from low (<0.10) to high (>0.55) in both species, and probability of crown dieback increased from high (0.74) to nearly complete (0.96) in E. marginata. Results from beta regression analysis at the stand-level confirmed tree-level results, illustrating a significant inverse relationship between LTP reduction and either tree mortality (F=10.39, P=0.0073) or dieback (F=54.72, P<0.0001). Our findings quantify chronic climate legacy effects during a well-documented tree mortality and crown dieback event that is specifically associated with an heatwave-compounded drought. Our results highlight how insights into both acute heatwavecompounded drought effects and chronic drought legacies need to be integrated into assessments of how drought and warming together trigger broad-scale tree mortality and crown dieback events.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chronic historical drought legacy exacerbates tree mortality and crown dieback during acute heatwave-compounded drought

Matusick

Ruthrof

Kala

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

Self Cite

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…RCMs have been proven to be capable of improving the representations of mean climatology and extreme climate over GCMs, and widely used in regional climate change projection over East Asia including China (e.g. Zou and Zhou, 2013;Bao et al, 2015;Andrys et al, 2016;Qin and Xie, 2016;Smiatek et al, 2016;Tang et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2016). For example, Bao et al (2015) assessed the present-day and future precipitation changes over China using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model driven with GFDL-ESM2G under the RCP4.5 scenario, indicating increase of annual and extreme precipitation in most parts of China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change projections over China using regional climate models forced by two CMIP5 global models. Part II: projections of future climate

Hui

Tang

Wang

et al. 2018

Intl Journal of Climatology

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The changes in mean and extreme climate in China during 2020–2060 are detected with both Weather Research and Forecasting and RegCM4, by downscaling the simulations from EC‐EATTH and IPSL‐CM5A under both the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The climate changes under the two scenarios exhibit similar patterns, with stronger intensity under the RCP8.5 scenario. For the mean precipitation, increases are projected in most regions, with the largest relative increase in the Tarim Basin. Slight drought mainly occurs in the south‐eastern part of China. The frequency of drizzle rain is expected to decrease in all the sub‐regions, but the moderate to heavy rainfall as well as the storm would occur more frequently, especially on the Tibetan Plateau. The whole country would experience much warmer climate in the future, with the strongest warming over the Tibetan Plateau. By detecting the changes in climate extremes, it is indicated that less dry extremes would occur in the wet areas of China, while more dry events in the arid and semiarid regions. The wet extreme indices would increase in most regions, especially in the wet areas. The surface air temperature tends to become extremely warmer in the future over the whole country, with the strongest change over the Tibetan Plateau. The changes in mean and extreme climate depend strongly on the driving global climate models, with wetter and warmer climate in the downscalings over IPSL‐CM5A, and the model physics of the regional climate models also exert great impact on the projections. Finally, the possible mechanisms for the changes of extreme precipitation are discussed. The enhanced summer monsoon in the future transports more moisture to China, which could lead to more summer precipitation. As a result, the wet extremes tend to increase.

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“…To perform more reliable simulations and projections for regional climates, uncertainty assessments are critical for the evaluation of the dynamical downscaling simulations produced by different RCMs and driven by different GCMs. There are plenty of studies around the world addressing this need and providing various RCM simulations (Fan et al ., ; Horton et al ., ; Andrys et al ., ; Gao et al ., ; Smiatek et al ., ). Gao et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change projections over China using regional climate models forced by two CMIP5 global models. Part I: evaluation of historical simulations

Hui

Tang

Wang

et al. 2017

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Forced by two Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) global models, EC‐EARTH and IPSL‐CM5A, both regional climate models (RCMs) of Regional Climate Model system version 4 (RegCM4) and Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) are used to perform regional climate simulations over China for 1980–2000. In general, the simulations in Institute Pierre Simon Laplace‐Climate Model version 5A (IPSL‐CM5A) are improved by the downscaling of many aspects of both precipitation and surface air temperature, with improvements including the significant enhancement of the resolution and presentation of regional processes in the RCMs. However, the improvement over EC‐EARTH is limited. In addition, the added values also depend on the seasons, geophysical locations over the country and the variables presented. For the mean climates, both RCMs are able to exhibit better annual and winter precipitation measurements when downscaling IPSL‐CM5A over most areas. The superiority of the RCMs over IPSL‐CM5A for the surface air temperature is only obtained in summer. Seasonal cycles of both precipitation and surface air temperature are well simulated by all the models. The RCMs succeed in improving the seasonal cycles of precipitation over both GCMs in most sub‐regions, but the seasonal cycles of temperature are only improved over IPSL‐CM5A. In addition, the downscaling demonstrates more consistent probability distribution functions (PDFs) of precipitation with those of the observations in most sub‐regions. For extreme precipitation, the RCMs provide outstanding convective wet days (CWD) with reduced biases and enhanced presentations of spatial patterns. For the other three extreme precipitation indices, the improvement of the RCMs is relatively weak, with superior over the IPSL‐CM5A in several areas. The extreme temperature indices are better modelled by the RCMs, except for the minimum values of the daily minimum temperatures (TNn), with greater added values over IPSL‐CM5A than those over EC‐EARTH. Comparing two RCMs, WRF shows advantages in the downscaling precipitation, while RegCM4 works better for the surface air temperature.

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Regional climate projections of mean and extreme climate for the southwest of Western Australia (1970–1999 compared to 2030–2059)

Abstract: CSIROmk3.5 and ECHAM5. We show that the RCM adds value to the GCM and 5 we suggest that this is through improved representation of regional scale topogra-

Cited by 56 publications

References 63 publications

Chronic historical drought legacy exacerbates tree mortality and crown dieback during acute heatwave-compounded drought

Chronic historical drought legacy exacerbates tree mortality and crown dieback during acute heatwave-compounded drought

Climate change projections over China using regional climate models forced by two CMIP5 global models. Part II: projections of future climate

Climate change projections over China using regional climate models forced by two CMIP5 global models. Part I: evaluation of historical simulations

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