Wind Over the Adriatic Region in CORDEX Climate Change Scenarios

Abstract

Near‐surface winds over the Adriatic region are examined under present‐day and future climate conditions for two greenhouse gas scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 and Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5) with an ensemble of high‐resolution (0.11°) Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) simulations. The influence of particular combinations of regional climate models and global climate models and emission scenarios on the future changes in the near‐surface wind field has been explored in more detail. Starting with the seasonal climate change signal in large‐scale flow over the entire CORDEX domain, we focus on regional daily wind fields over the Adriatic domain and subdaily features of well‐known regional winds (Bora and Sirocco winds). The analysis reveals the strong sensitivity of the climate change signal in the simulated wind flow to (i) the choice of the global climate model that provides the boundary conditions and (ii) the analyzed locations across the Adriatic region. The results of the 21st‐century projections indicate that the changes in synoptic activity have an impact on the wind field at the (sub)daily time scale. We found a reduction in the number of Bora events and increase in the number of Sirocco events in northern Adriatic during the winter season, with an increase in pressure in the middle of the 21st century. Overall, the mean wind speed during Bora and Sirocco events is reduced, except for Bora in northern Adriatic. For the summer season, we found a large increase in the number of thermally induced flows, which is probably caused by the weakening of the Azores High.

Climate change impacts on viticulture in Croatia: Viticultural zoning and future potential

“…The colder modelled bioclimatic indices occur because (a) GCM errors impact RCM results through initial and boundary conditions (e.g., Belušić Vozila et al, 2019), and (b) RCM errors. They are caused by limiting resolution, domain size, smoothed topography, unresolved detailed land cover, various schemes and parameterizations of the unresolved processes in the model specifications.…”

“…For the analysis of the existing climate characteristics as well as for future climate projections, the results of RCMs from the EURO‐CORDEX database (e.g., Jacob et al, 2014) at 0.11° grid spacing are used. Here, three models (Table 2) were selected due to their superior performances in the extensive analysis of the wind climate carried out in Belušić et al (2018) and Belušić Vozila, Güttler, Ahrens, Obermann‐Hellhund, & Telišman Prtenjak (2019) for Croatia. They are SMHI‐RCA4, CLMcom and CNRM‐ALADIN5.3 driven by the ERA‐Interim reanalysis or different GCMs (up to five and in the period 1971–2099) through initial and boundary conditions.…”

“…They are SMHI‐RCA4, CLMcom and CNRM‐ALADIN5.3 driven by the ERA‐Interim reanalysis or different GCMs (up to five and in the period 1971–2099) through initial and boundary conditions. Following Belušić Vozila et al (2019), two representative concentration pathways (RCPs), moderate RCP4.5 and high‐end RCP8.5, have been considered for all simulations forming an ensemble of 10 future climate simulations for each RCP (that makes 20 simulations available for future climate). The ensemble of different combinations of GCM and RCM allows an estimation of the model spreads of the potential climate variability and/or uncertainty.…”

E-DATA: A Comprehensive Field Campaign to Investigate Evaporation Enhanced by Advection in the Hyper-Arid Altiplano

“…Even when there are studies that have investigated the atmospheric circulation near the study site [10,52], as far as we know, no efforts have been made to understand these processes from a multiscale perspective. Further, as it is widely known that climate change can affect wind patterns [53][54][55], and that in the study site the reduction of the zonal wind has decreased the potential evaporation by 10%-20% compared to the second half of the twentieth century [11], it is important to ensure a continuous monitoring in order to quantify evaporation changes that will modify the water balance and biogeochemical processes of this high Andean wetland.…”

Performance of the Adriatic Sea and Coast (AdriSC) climate component – a COAWST V3.3-based coupled atmosphere-ocean modelling suite: atmospheric part

“…It is thus expected that the detailed analysis of the 31-year long AdriSC climate evaluation run will provide, in a near future, more robust and more reliable results concerning the drivers of the BiOS, but also better representation of the orographically-driven wind storms and their impact on the ocean processes such as the Adriatic thermohaline circulation. Additionally, the future climate of the bora winds and the BiOS has been, so far, documented through an assessment of EURO-CORDEX and Med-CORDEX climate models at 0.11° horizontal resolution (Somot et al, 2006;Belušić Vozila et al, 2019). Consequently, the analysis of the 31-year long AdriSC projections under climate warning scenario (2070-2100 period) may also provide some new insights concerning the future of severe bora dynamics as well as of the associated dense water formation and Adriatic thermohaline circulation.…”