Evaluation of the Eta Simulations Nested in Three Global Climate Models

作     者：Sin Chan Chou André Lyra Caroline Mourao Claudine Dereczynski Isabel Pilotto Jorge Gomes Josiane Bustamante Priscila Tavares Adan Silva Daniela Rodrigues Diego Campos Diego Chagas Gustavo Sueiro Gracielle Siqueira Paulo Nobre José Marengo 

作者机构：National Institute for Space ResearchCachoeira PaulistaBrazil Department of MeteorologyFederal University of Rio de JaneiroRio de JaneiroBrazil Centre for Monitoring and Warning of Natural DisastersCachoeira PaulistaBrazil 

出 版 物：《American Journal of Climate Change》 (美国气候变化期刊（英文）)

年 卷 期：2014年第3卷第5期

页      面：438-454页

学科分类：07[理学] 070601[理学-气象学] 0706[理学-大气科学] 

基　　金：The authors thank:the Brazilian Ministry of Science,Technology,and Innovation for supporting the work through Global Environmental Facility funding(UNDP BRA/05/G31) the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs of the presidency of Brazil for additional funding,Martin Juckes from the British Atmospheric Data Centre for making available HadGEM2-ES dataset and Seita Emori and Tokuta Yokohata from the National Institute for Environmental Studies for making available the MIROC5 dataset.S.C.C thanks the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development for the grant PQ 308035/2013-5 

主　　题：South America Climate Downscaling Model Evaluation Climatic Extreme Indicators Eta Model 

摘      要：To provide long-term simulations of climate change at higher resolution, Regional Climate Models (RCMs) are nested in global climate models (GCMs). The objective of this work is to evaluate the Eta RCM simulations driven by three global models, the HadGEM2-ES, BESM, and MIROC5, for the present period, 1961-1990. The RCM domain covers South America, Central America, and Caribbean. These simulations will be used for assessment of climate change projections in the region. Maximum temperatures are generally underestimated in the domain, in particular by MIROC5 driven simulations, in summer and winter seasons. Larger spread among the simulations was found in the minimum temperatures, which showed mixed signs of errors. The spatial correlations of temperature simulations against the CRU observations show better agreement for the MIROC5 driven simulations. The nested simulations underestimate precipitation in large areas over the continent in austral summer, whereas in winter overestimate occurs in southern Amazonia, and underestimate in southern Brazil and eastern coast of Northeast Brazil. The annual cycle of the near-surface temperature is underestimated in all model simulations, in all regions in Brazil, and in most of the year. The temperature and precipitation frequency distributions reveal that the RCM and GCM simulations contain more extreme values than the CRU observations. Evaluations of the climatic extreme indicators show that in general hot days, warm nights, and heat waves are increasing in the period, in agreement with observations. The Eta simulations driven by HadGEM2-ES show wet trends in the period, whereas the Eta driven by BESM and by MIROC5 show trends for drier conditions.