Abstract
The distribution of winter precipitation as analysed by the meteorological analysis system SAFRAN is validated using data from two test sites. This system, applied to the French Alps, shows that the frequency of high precipitation events is not necessarily linked to mean precipitation. Using a downscaling procedure, the system was run with General Circulation Model (GCM) outputs. The corresponding snow cover is derived with the snow model CROCUS. The results are very sensitive to the quality of the GCM run. The analyses of two future climate scenarios show that drastic changes in precipitation distribution may occur in the future.
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Martin, E., Durand, Y. (1998). Precipitation and snow cover variability in the french alps. In: Beniston, M., Innes, J.L. (eds) The Impacts of Climate Variability on Forests. Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences, vol 74. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0009766
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0009766
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