Abstract
As the computer resources increases, regional climate simulations can be investigated at finer horizontal resolutions in order to improve the representation of surface characteristics and mesoscale circulation. This paper aims at examining the relevance of precipitation fields simulated by highresolution regional climate models for hydrological purposes.
The MAR — Modèle Atmosphérique Régional — model was run at 20-km resolution for a four-month period over the Alps and the southeastern mountainous regions of France. The validation on the climatology of mean variables has not revealed visible drift or spurious trend. Precipitation generally reaches about 80% of the value obtained by the GPCC — Global Precipitation Climatology Center — climatology, and the spatial distribution of precipitation also compare favorably to observations. Significant sensitivity to the inclusion of cloud water fluxes at the lateral boundaries has been found for the spatial distribution of precipitation, more specifically in the representation of stratiform precipitation.
However the finest horizontal resolution used in RCM is about 20 km, which remains too coarse for the forcing of hydrological models, especially over mountainous regions. In order to improve the impact of the topographical forcing on microphysical processes, a rain disaggregation model has been applied to the precipitation simulated with MAR. Such a model has proven its usefulness for the representation of precipitation over watersheds, particularly for the situations characterized by heavy rainfall. Even if improvements are yet required, for instance considering interactive disaggregation, rain disaggregation models can be seen as a useful tool to interface hydrological and regional climate models.
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Brasseur, O., Gallée, H., Creutin, JD., Lebel, T., Marbaix, P. (2002). High resolution simulations of precipitation over the Alps with the perspective of coupling to hydrological models. In: Beniston, M. (eds) Climatic Change: Implications for the Hydrological Cycle and for Water Management. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47983-4_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47983-4_4
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