A method for deriving a future temporal spectrum of heavy precipitation on the basis of weather patterns in low mountain ranges

✍ Scribed by Johannes Franke; Christian Bernhofer

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 445 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1350-4827
• DOI: 10.1002/met.149

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

A weather‐pattern‐based multiple regression model to derive future possible changes in the level of the higher temporal resolution spectrum of heavy precipitation has been developed. The temporal spectrum was described using statistical precipitation amounts as a function of the event's duration (1–24 h) and return period (once in 5 yr to once in 100 yr). The principle of the method consists in projecting a statistical relationship between the parameters of a transformed Gumbel distribution (theoretical extreme value distribution) and the distribution of classes of objective weather patterns to time slices in the near future of climate. Changes in distribution parameters were constructed in the model from changes in the distribution of weather patterns. Possible change signals were calculated for the catchment of the Weißeritz River (Ore Mountains, Germany) for the time slices centred around 2025 (2011–2040) and 2050 (2036–2065) as changes versus the reanalyses of the reference period 1961–2000 (May–September). For the climate conditions to be expected in the near future (IPCC A1B scenario), increases in the amounts of heavy precipitation, i.e. decreases in the return periods of equal amounts of heavy precipitation from the reference period, were obtained for the entire temporal spectrum covered by this paper. Overall, the change signals derived on the basis of a concept of weather patterns seem plausible because they represent a possible continuation of the already observed increase in frequency and intensification of events of heavy precipitation in the extended study area. Copyright © 2009 Royal Meteorological Society