Present climate validation of an ensemble of regional climate models over South America forced by 1989-2008 ERAinterim reanalysis

ENRIQUE SANCHEZ; HUGO BERBERY; SOLMAN SILVINA ALICIA; ROBERTO GARCÍA-OCHOA; PATRICK SAMUELSSON; ARMELLE RECA CABASE REMEDIO; DANIELA JACOB; MAISA ROJAS; ANNA SORENSSON; CLAUDIO MENÉNDEZ; ROSMERI PORFIRIO DA ROCHA; MANUEL CASTRO; NATALIA LIZ PESSACG; JOSE MARENGO; SIN-CHAN CHOU; LAURENT LI; HERVE LE TREUT

Congreso; The Meeting of the Americas 2010; 2010

American Geophysical Union

The results of a set of coordinated regional climate simulations performed with a group of regional climate models (RCM) over South America is presented. The RCMs are forced by ERAinterim reanalysis and the simulated period comprises 21 years, from 1989 to 2008. The motivation of this study is twofold. First, to characterize the uncertainty in simulating the South American climate through the evaluation of the degree of agreement among different models. A special focus will be made over the La Plata Basin (LPB) region. Second, to evaluate the capability of the regional model’s ensemble in representing the observed climate. Tthe simulations are validated against CRU and an observational database of daily precipitation and temperature data compiled for the LPB region. In a first overview, the spatial structure of maximum, minimum and mean daily temperature and precipitation is evaluated. Several subregions are chosen for a more detailed description, and therefore the mean annual cycle, the interannual variability and the frequency distribution functions of monthly values of precipitation and temperatures over each of the subregions are evaluated. This validation of a group of RCMs is included in CLARIS LPB project (A Europe-South America Network for Climate Change Assessment and Impact Studies in La Plata Basin, EU FP7 framework programme, 2008-2012), where regional climate change scenarios are planned to be performed once the validation analysis of present climate is made.