Identification

Title

Propagation of biases in climate models from the synoptic to the regional scale: Implications for bias adjustment

Abstract

Bias adjustment methods usually do not account for the origins of biases in climate models and instead perform empirical adjustments. Biases in the synoptic circulation are for instance often overlooked when postprocessing regional climate model (RCM) simulations driven by general circulation models (GCMs). Yet considering atmospheric circulation helps to establish links between the synoptic and the regional scale, and thereby provides insights into the physical processes leading to RCM biases. Here we investigate how synoptic circulation biases impact regional climate simulations and influence our ability to mitigate biases in precipitation and temperature using quantile mapping. We considered 20 GCM-RCM combinations from the ENSEMBLES project and characterized the dominant atmospheric flow over the Alpine domain using circulation types. We report in particular a systematic overestimation of the frequency of westerly flow in winter. We show that it contributes to the generalized overestimation of winter precipitation over Switzerland, and this wet regional bias can be reduced by improving the simulation of synoptic circulation. We also demonstrate that statistical bias adjustment relying on quantile mapping is sensitive to circulation biases, which leads to residual errors in the postprocessed time series. Overall, decomposing GCM-RCM time series using circulation types reveals connections missed by analyses relying on monthly or seasonal values. Our results underscore the necessity to better diagnose process misrepresentation in climate models to progress with bias adjustment and impact modeling.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7db83gv

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-03-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact