Evaluation of CDS climate projections

Last modified on Oct 09, 2023 16:10 

Introduction

Guidance

The main elements of the plots:

Domain: CORDEX domains are regions for which the regional downscaling is taking place, for example African domain (AFR) covers the whole of the African continent. Note that the Mediterranean domain is not included in the analysis.

Region: Reference regions correspond to climatic sub-areas where the results are aggregated (Iturbide et al. 2020). Here the last version (v4) of the reference regions is used.

Variable: available climatic variables are: tas (mean near-surface air temperature, units: K); pr (precipitation, units: kg m^-2 s^-1); tasmax (maximum near-surface air temperature, units: K); tasmin (minimum near-surface air temperature, units: K); sfcWind (near-surface wind speed, units: m s^-1) and huss (near-surface specific humidity, units: 1).

Metric: some metrics are calculated which characterize various aspects/dimensions which are relevant for practical applications (e.g. mean value, dry spells, or 98th percentile). These are built on the VALUE initiative.

Scenario: scenarios available are: Evaluation (model simulations for the past with imposed "perfect" lateral boundary condition using ERA-Interim reanalysis); Historical (model simulations for the past using lateral boundary conditions from CMIP5 simulations under the historical scenario); experiments RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 (simulations driven by boundary conditions from CMIP5 scenario projections using RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) forcing scenarios; experiments SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 simulations for CMIP6 scenario projections using the SSP (Shared Socioeconomic Pathway) forcing scenarios.

Index: period where the CMIP6 delta changes (difference between the future and past simulations) are calculated for Europe (medium-term and long-term periods correspond to the periods 2036-2065 and 2070-2099 respectively, the past reference period is 1981-2010).

More information about the details of the plots and their interpretation, please see at  CORDEX: Regional climate projections - Background documents and user guides

Particularly, please refer to documents 1, 9, 10 and 11.

Evaluation results

• CORDEX
• CMIP

• Diagnostics
• Validation

Domain: Variable: Scenario:

Climate stripes showing the time series of annual spatially aggregated values over the whole CORDEX domain (in columns) for the different available RCM simulations (in rows). Note that the colour bar range for some figures was narrowed to omit outliers, different variable units and abnormal behaviours. See the guidance above for more information on the interpretation of the presented plots.

Domain: Variable: Metric:

Reanalysis driven (left block) and the GCM-driven (right block) simulations. The GCMs are represented in magenta, with all RCMs (in black) driven by the preceding GCM. Each cell shows the biases corresponding to the annual (central), boreal summer/JJA (upper-left corner), and boreal winter (lower-right corner) values. The rows display results for different Reference regions. Metrics are defined following the VALUE initiative. See the guidance above for more information on the interpretation of the presented plots.

• Diagnostics
• Validation

Region: GCMs/CMIP: Variable: Index:

Heat maps, showing diagnostics (future climate change) for CMIP5 (models used for EURO-CORDEX as boundary conditions are highlighted in red) and CMIP6. Results are aggregated in the reference regions version v4. See the guidance above for more information on the interpretation of the presented plots.

Region: GCMs/CMIP: Variable: Metric:

Heat maps, showing GCM validation (biases) for CMIP5 (models used for EURO-CORDEX as boundary conditions are highlighted in red) and CMIP6. Results are aggregated in the reference regions version v4. See the guidance above for more information on the interpretation of the presented plots.