Specific Case: Regional Estimates of Global Climate Change: A Dynamical Downscaling Approach to Southeast Europe

Abstract

The NASA GISS General Circulation Model ModelE is used to simulate climatic conditions using the IPCC A1B emissions scenario. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used to dynamically downscale General Circulation Model simulations over south—southeast Europe at high spatial resolution (i.e., 9 km × 9 km). Annual and seasonal temperature and precipitation rates for five current years (i.e., 2008–2012) are compared with values for five future years (i.e., 2058–2062). Temperature trend suggests reduction of low and increase of high temperatures for all seasons in the future. The number of days with daily average temperature above 30 °C is estimated to be ten times higher in the future summers and eight times higher in the future springs. Interestingly, daily average temperatures above 30 °C start to appear in the future autumns too. Analysis of the spatial distribution plots, suggests that annual temperature is estimated to be higher in the future all over the domain. Annual temperature presents a gradual increase from the west to the east of the domain with increases in the range of 1.0–1.5° to cover the major part of the domain. Higher temperature increases are found during summer and autumn compared to winter and spring seasons. Precipitation trend over the domain suggests an increase of the dry days for the future winter, spring and autumn and a decrease for the future summer. Extreme precipitation rates are found higher during all future seasons, doubling the days of the extreme rates during future winters and springs. Analysis of the spatial distribution plots suggests that annual precipitation is estimated to be lower up to 40 % in the major part of the land at the southeast (i.e., Balkan Peninsula and Turkey) and the west part of the domain while an increase of up to 60 % is found over central Mediterranean, northern Italy and the central European countries belonging in the domain. Seasonal analysis suggest that precipitation change is very location dependent presenting a mixed trend.