Abstract
In this article, we examine climate model estimations for the future climate over central Belgium. Our analysis is focused mainly on two variables: potential evapotranspiration (PET) and precipitation. PET is calculated using the Penman equation with parameters appropriately calibrated for Belgium, based on RCM data from the European project PRUDENCE database. Next, we proceed into estimating the model capacity to reproduce the reference climate for PET and precipitation. The same analysis for precipitation is also performed based on GCM data from the IPCC AR4 database. Then, the climate change signal is evaluated over central Belgium using RCM and GCM simulations based on several SRES scenarios. The RCM simulations show a clear shift in the precipitation pattern with an increase during winter and a decrease during summer. However, the inclusion of another set of SRES scenarios from the GCM simulations leads to a less clear climate change signal.
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Acknowledgments
The research presented in this paper was done in the scope of the CCI-HYDR research project for the Belgian Science Policy Office (BelSPO)—Research Program “Science for a Sustainable Development”. Data for this work have been provided through the IPCC Data Distribution Center and through the PRUDENCE data archive. The IPCC data are available for download from http://www.ipcc-data.org/ and the PRUDENCE data from http://prudence.dmi.dk/.
We would like finally to thank the referees for their remarks that helped us to further improve this work.
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Baguis, P., Roulin, E., Willems, P. et al. Climate change scenarios for precipitation and potential evapotranspiration over central Belgium. Theor Appl Climatol 99, 273–286 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-009-0146-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-009-0146-5