Regional climate models for hydrological impact studies at the catchment scale: A review of recent modeling strategies

Geography Compass

Volumn 4, Issue 7, 2010, Pages 834-860

  Teutschbein, Claudia ^a   Seibert, Jan ^a,b  

^a STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

^b UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH   (Switzerland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CATCHMENT; CLIMATE CHANGE; CLIMATE MODELING; COMPUTER SIMULATION; ENSEMBLE FORECASTING; HYDROLOGICAL CHANGE; HYDROLOGICAL MODELING; NUMERICAL MODEL; REGIONAL CLIMATE;

EID: 77956631042     PISSN: None     EISSN: 17498198     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2010.00357.x     Document Type: Review

References (80)

1. Akhtar M, Ahmad N, Booj M J. Use of regional climate model simulations as input forhydrological models for the Hindukush-Karakorum-Himalaya region. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions 2008, 5:865-902.
2. Arnell N W. The effect of climate change on hydrological regimes in Europe: a continental perspective. Global Environmental Change 1999, 9:5-23.
3. Baigorria G A. Assessing uncertainties in crop model simulations using daily bias-corrected Regional Climate Model outputs. Climate Research 2007, 34:211-222.
4. Beldring S, Engen-Skaugen T, Førland E J, Roald L A. Climate change impacts on hydrological processes in Norway based on two methods for transferring regional climate model results to meteorological station sites. Tellus 2008, 60A:439-450.
5. Bell V A, Kay A L, Jones R G, Moore R J. Development of a high resolution grid-based river flow model for use with regional climate model output. Hydrology & Earth System Science 2007a, 11(1):532-549.
6. Bell V A, Kay A L, Jones R G, Moore R J. Use of a grid-based hydrological model and regional climate model outputs to assess changing flood risk. International Journal of Climatology 2007b, 27:1657-1671.
7. Bergström S. Climate change impacts on runoff in Sweden - assessments by global climate models, dynamical downscaling and hydrological modelling. Climate Research 2001, 16:101-112.
8. Block P J, Filhou F A S, Sun L, Kwon H-H. A streamflow forecasting framework using multiple climate and hydrological models. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 2009, 45(4):823-843.
9. Blöschl G, Montanari A. Climate change impacts - throwing the dice? Hydrological Processes 2010, 24:374-381. http://www.interscience.wiley.com,, Online]. Published on 17 December 2009 in Wiley InterScience. From (accessed 1 February 2010)
10. Boé J, Terray L, Habets F, Martin E. Statistical and dynamical downscaling of the Seine basin climate for hydro-meteorological studies. International Journal of Climatology 2007, 27:1643-1655.
11. Boé J, Terray L, Martin E, Habets F. Projected changes in components of the hydrological cycle in French river basins during the 21st century. Water Resources Research 2009, 45:1-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008WR007437, W08426, doi:,
12. Booij M J. Impact of climate change on river flooding assessed with different spatial model resolutions. Journal of Hydrology 2005, 303:176-198.
13. Bürger C M, Kolditz O, Fowler H J, Blenkinsop S. Future climate scenarios and rainfall-runoff modelling in the Upper Gallego catchment (Spain). Environmental Pollution 2007, 148:842-854.
14. Busuioc A, Giorgi F, Bi X, Ionita M. Comparison of regional climate model and statistical downscaling simulations of different winter precipitation change scenarios over Romania. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 2006, 86:101-123.
15. Cameron D. An application of the UKCIP02 climate change scenarios to flood estimation by continuos simulation for a gauged catchment in the northeast of Scotland, UK (with uncertainty). Journal of Hydrology 2006, 328:212-226.
16. Casanova S, Ahrens B. On the weighting of multimodel ensembles in seasonal and short-range weather forecasting. Monthly Weather Review 2009, 137:3811-3822.
17. Chiew F H S, Teng J, Vaze J, Kirono D G C. Influence of global climate model selection on runoff impact assessment. Journal of Hydrology 2009, 379:172-180.
18. Christensen J H, Carter T R, Rummukainen M, Amanatidus G. Evaluating the performance and utility of regional climate models: the PRUDENCE project. Climatic Change 2007, 81:1-6.
19. Dankers R. Evaluation of very high-resolution climate model data for simulating flood hazards in the Upper Danube Basin. Joural of Hydrology 2007, 347:319-331.
20. De Wit M J M. Impact of climate change on low-flows in the river Meuse. Climatic Change 2007, 82:351-372.
21. Déqué M. Frequency of precipitation and temperature extremes over France in an anthropogenic scenario: model results and statistical correction according to observed values. Global and Planetary Change 2007, 57:16-26.
22. Déqué M. An intercomparison of regional climate simulations for Europe: assessing uncertainties in model projections. Climate Change 2007, 81:53-70.
23. Dickinson R E, Errico R M, Giorgi F, Bates G T. A regional climate model fo the Western United States. Climatic Change 1989, 15:383-422.
24. Durman C F. A comparison of extreme European daily precipitation simulated by a global and a regional climate model for present and future climates. Quarterly Journal of Royal Meteorological Society 2001, 127:1005-1015.
25. Engen-Skaugen T. Refinement of dynamically downscaled precipitation and temperature scenarios. Climatic Change 2007, 84:365-382.
26. Evans J P. Improving the characteristics of streamflow modeled by regional climate models. Journal of Hydrology 2003, 284:211-227.
27. Fowler H J, Ekström M. Multi-model ensemble estimates of climate change impacts on UK seasonal precipitation extremes. International Journal of Climatology 2009, 29:385-416.
28. Fowler H J, Kilsby C G. Using regional climate model data to simulate historical and future river flows in northwest England. Climatic Change 2007, 80:337-367.
29. Fowler H J, Blenkinsop S, Tebaldi C. Review - linking climate change modelling to impacts studies: recent advances in downscaling techniques for hydrological modelling. International Journal of Climatology 2007, 27:1547-1578.
30. Frei C. Daily precipitation statistics in regional climate models: evaluation and intercomparison for the European Alps. Journal of Geophysical Research 2003, 108:19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2002JD002287,, 4124), doi
31. Giorgi F. Regional climate modeling: Status and perspectives. Journal de Physique IV France 2006, 139:101-118.
32. Giorgi F, Hostetler S W, Brodeur C S. Analysis of the surface hydrology in a regional climate model. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 1994, 120:161-183.
33. Goderniaux P. Large scale surface-subsurface hydrological model to assess climate change impacts on grundwater reserves. Journal of Hydrology 2009, 373:122-138.
34. Graham L P, Hagemann S, Jaun S, Beniston M. On interpreting hydrological change from regional climate models. Climatic Change 2007, 81:97-122.
35. Hagemann S. Evaluation of water and energy budgets in regional climate models applied over Europe. Climate Dynamics 2004, 23:547-567.
36. Hashino T, Bradley A A, Schwartz S S. Evaluation of bias-correction methods for ensemble streamflow volume forecast. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 2007, 11:939-950.
37. Hay L E. Use of regional climate model output for hydrologic simulations. Journal of Hydrometeorology 2002, 3:571-590.
38. Haylock M R. Downscaling heavy precipitaion over the United Kingdom: a comparison of dynamical and statistical methods and their future scenarios. International Journal of Climatology 2006, 26:1397-1415.
39. Hellström C, Chen D, Achberger C, Räisänen J. Comparison of climate change scenarios for Sweden based on statistical and dynamical downscaling of monthly precipitation. Climate Research 2001, 19:45-55.
40. Hewitson B C, Crane R G. Climate downscaling: techniques and application. Climate Research 1996, 7:85-95.
41. Horton P. Assessment of climate-change impacts on alpine discharge regimes with climate model uncertainty. Hydrological Processes 2006, 20:2091-2109.
42. van den Hurk B. Soil Control on Runoff Response to Climate Change in Regional Climate Model Simulations. Journal of Climate 2005, 18:3536-3551.
43. Ines A V M, Hansen J W. Bias correction of daily GCM rainfall for crop simulation studies. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 2006, 138:44-53.
44. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007, Cambridge, UK/New York, NY, USA, Cambridge University Press
45. Jha M, Pan Z, Takle E S, Gu R. the impacts of climate change on stream flow in the Upper Mississippi River Basin: a regional climate model perspective. Journal of Geophysical Research 2004, 109:1-12.
46. Johansson B. Estimation of areal precipitation for hydrological modelling 2002, PhD thesis, Earth Sciences Centre, Göteborg University, Report nr. A76
47. Kay A L, Davies H N. Calculating potential evaporation from climate model data: A source of uncertainty for hydrological climate change impact. Journal of Hydrology 2008, 358:221-239.
48. Kay A L, Reynard N S, Jones R G. RC; rainfall for UK flood frequency estimation. II. Climate change results. Journal of Hydrology 2006a, 318:163-172.
49. Kay A L, Reynard N S, Jones R G. RCM rainfall for UK flood frequency estimation. I. Method and validation. Journal of Hydrology 2006b, 318:151-162.
50. Kleinn J. Hydrologic simulations in the Rhine basin driven by a regional climate model. Journal of Geophysical Research 2005, 110:1-18.
51. Kottek M. World Map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification updated. Meteorologische Zeitschrift 2006, 15(3):259-263.
52. Kug J-S. Optimal multi-model ensemble method in seasonal climate prediction. Asia-Pacific Journal of Atmospheric Sciences 2008, 44(3):259-267.
53. Leander R, Buishand T A. Resampling of regional climate model output for the simulation of extreme river flows. Journal of Hydrology 2007, 332:487-496.
54. Leander R, Buishand T A, van den Hurk B J J M, de Wit M J M. Estimated changes in flood quantiles of the river Meuse from resampling of regional climate model output. Journal of Hydrology 2008, 351:331-343.
55. Lee D-K, Cha D-H, Kang H-S. Regional climate simulation of the 1998 summer flood over East Asia. Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan 2004, 82:1735-1753.
56. Lorenz P, Jacob D. Influence of regional scale information on the global circulation: A two-way nesting climate simulation. Geophysical Research Letters 2005, 32:1-4.
57. Mavromatis T. Use of drought indices in climate change impact assessment studies: an application to Greece. International Journal of Climatology 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.1976, [Online]. doi
58. Mearns L O. Guidelines for Use of Climate Scenarios Developed from Regional Climate Model Experiments. 2003, http://www.ipcc-data.org/guidelines/dgm_no1_v1_10-2003.pdf, Published online. Supporting material to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. From (accessed 19 January 2010
59. Moore K. Effects of warmer world scenarios on hydrologic inputs to Lake Mälraen, Sweden and implications for nutrient loads. Hydrobiologia 2008, 599:191-199.
60. Murphy J. An evaluation of statistical and dynamical techniques for downscaling local climate. Journal of Climate 1998, 12:2256-2284.
61. Murphy J. Predictions of climate change over Europe using statistical and dynamical downscaling techniques. International Journal of Climatology 2000, 20:489-501.
62. Payne J T. Mitigating the effects of climate change on the water resources of the Columbia river basin. Climatic Change 2004, 62:233-256.
63. Piani C, Haerter J O, Coppola E. Statistical bias correction for daily precipitation in regional climate models over Europe. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 2010, 99:187-192. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00704-009-0134-9,, doi
64. Prudhomme C, Davies H. Assessing uncertainties in climate change impact analyses on the river flow regimes in the UK. Part 1: baseline climate. Climatic Change 2009a, 93:177-195.
65. Prudhomme C, Davies H. Assessing uncertainties in climate change impact analyses on the river flow regimes in the UK. Part 2: future climate. Climatic Change 2009b, 93:197-222.
66. Schmidli J, Frei C, Vidale P L. Downscaling from GCM precipitation: a benchmark for dynamical and statistical downscaling methods. International Journal of Climatology 2006, 26:679-689.
67. Seibert J. Multi-criteria calibration of a conceptual runoff model using a genetic algorithm. Hydrology & Earth System Science 2000, 4(2):215-224.
68. Seibert J. Reliability of model predictions outside calibration conditions. Nordic Hydrology 2003, 34(5):477-492.
69. Semmler T. Regional climate ensemble simulations for Ireland - impact of climate change on river flooding. 2006, In: , 2006
70. Sennikovs J, Bethers U. Statistical downscaling method of regional climate model results for hydrological modelling. 2009, In: , Cairns, Australia, 2009
71. Shabalova M V, van Deursen W P A, Buishand T A. Assessing future discharge of the river Rhine using regional climate model integrations and a hydrological model. Climate Research 2003, 23:233-246.
72. Spear R C, Hornberger G M. Eutrophication in peel inlet - II. Identification of critical uncertainties via generalized sensitivity analysis. Water Research 1980, 14:43-49.
73. Steele-Dunne S. The impacts of climate change on hydrology in Ireland. Journal of Hydrology 2008, 356:28-45.
74. Varis O, Kajander T, Lemmelä R. Climate and Water: From Climate Models to Water Resources Management and Vice Versa. Climatic Change 2004, 66:321-344.
75. Weigel A P, Liniger M A, Appenyeller C. Seasonal Ensemble Forecasts: Are Recalibrated Single Models Better than Multimodels? Monthly Weather Review 2009, 137:1460-1479.
76. Wilby R L, Wigley T M. Downscaling general circulation model output: a review of methods and limitations. Progress in Physical Geography 1997, 21:530-548.
77. Wilby R L. Hydrological responses to dynamically and statistically downscaled climate model output. Geophysical Research Letters 2000, 27(8):1199-1202.
78. Wilby R L. Guidelines for Use of Climate Scenarios Developed from Statistical Downscaling Methods. 2004, http://www.ipcc-data.org/guidelines/dgm_no2_v1_09_2004.pdf, Published online. Supporting material to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 27. From (accessed 19 January 2010
79. Wilby R L. Integrated modelling of climate change impacts on water resources and quality in a lowland catchment: River Kennet, UK. Journal of Hydrology 2006, 330:204-220.
80. Wood A W, Leung L R, Sridhar V, Lettenmaier D P. Hydrologic implications of dynamical and statistical approaches to downscaling climate model outputs. Climatic Change 2004, 62:189-216.