Results of a new methodology for the analyze the climate change uncertainty on a high step mountain range. Application at the Andes

CARRIL A. F.; RUSCICA R.; FLOMBAUM P.; SÖRENSSON, ANNA; FITA L.; MENÉNDEZ C. G.; ZANINELLI P.

Beijing

Conferencia; ICRC-CORDEX 2019, International Conference on Regional Climate; 2019

WCRP/CORDEX

Abstract Multi-model climate change analysis overmountainous regions is a complex topic due to the models´ differentrepresentations of the mountains. The Andes Mountains produces a hugedisturbance of the atmospheric circulation of South America with largedifferences in the climatic response that occur on the windward and lee side ofthe range. Due to different representations of the mountain, the windward andlee sides will differ among the models. Moreover, the climate along themountain range will present a strong dependence on the topographical high ofthe grid point, also differing among models, and its distance from the Equator.In order to take under consideration all these elements, we present the firstresults of a methodology which allows us to objectively classify the domain ofsimulation following three different criteria: latitudinal bands, topographicalheight and W-E side along the range.  Themethodology is applied to analyze the climate change projection and itsuncertainty of all over the South American Andes mountain range. This rangeencompasses a large variety of climates along its North-South distribution andpresents also strong W-E climate differences due to its blocking effect to thelarge-scale circulation. The databases used include a sub-set of CMIP5 runs,available CORDEX runs, and some re-analysis in order to provide a robustmeasure of the uncertainty spanned by these models presented at different,latitudes, heights and sides of the mountains.