Simulating future precipitation extremes in a complex Alpine catchment

Natural Hazards and Earth System Science

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 2013, Pages 263-277

  Dobler, C ^a,b   Burger G ^c,d   Stotter J ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK   (Austria)

^b AlpS Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Technologies   (Austria)

^c UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA   (Canada)

^d UNIVERSITY OF POTSDAM   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ALPINE ENVIRONMENT; CATCHMENT; CLIMATE CHANGE; CLIMATE EFFECT; CLIMATE MODELING; CLIMATE PREDICTION; DOWNSCALING; GLOBAL CLIMATE; PRECIPITATION ASSESSMENT; PRECIPITATION INTENSITY; REGIONAL CLIMATE; STOCHASTICITY; SYNOPTIC METEOROLOGY;

ALPS; EASTERN ALPS; NORTHERN CALCAREOUS ALPS;

EID: 84873669805     PISSN: 15618633     EISSN: 16849981     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5194/nhess-13-263-2013     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. Agrawala, S.: Climate Change in the European Alps: Adapting Winter Tourism and Natural Hazard Management, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Publications, Paris, 2007.
2. Allan, R. P. and Soden, B. J.: Atmospheric Warming and the Amplification of Precipitation Extremes, Science, 321, 1481-1484, doi:10.1126/science.1160787, 2008.
3. Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung: Hydrologische U bersicht Mai 1999, Innsbruck, Austria, 1999.
4. Beldring, S., Engen-Skaugen, T., Førland, E. J., and 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 A, 60, 439-450, doi:10.1111/j.1600-0870.2008.00306.x, 2008.
5. Benestad, R. E.: Downscaling precipitation extremes, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 100, 1-21, doi:10.1007/s00704-009-0158-1, 2010.
6. Benestad, R. E., Hanssen-Bauer, I., and Deliang, C.: Empiricalstatistical downscaling, World Sci., Singapore, 2008.
7. Beniston, M.: August 2005 intense rainfall event in Switzerland: Not necessarily an analog for strong convective events in a greenhouse climate, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L05701, doi:10.1029/2005gl025573, 2006.
8. Beniston, M.: Linking extreme climate events and economic impacts: Examples from the Swiss Alps, Energy Policy, 35, 5384- 5392, 2007. (Pubitemid 47430491)
9. Beniston, M., Stephenson, D., Christensen, O., Ferro, C., Frei, C., Goyette, S., Halsnaes, K., Holt, T., Jylhä, K., Koffi, B., Palutikof, J., Schöll, R., Semmler, T., and Woth, K.: Future extreme events in European climate: an exploration of regional climate model projections, Climatic Change, 81, 71-95, doi:10.1007/s10584- 006-9226-z, 2007. (Pubitemid 46722472)
10. Booij, M. J.: Impact of climate change on river flooding assessed with different spatial model resolutions, J. Hydrol., 303, 176- 198, 2005. (Pubitemid 40307133)
11. Buonomo, E., Jones, R., Huntingford, C., and Hannaford, J.: On the robustness of changes in extreme precipitation over Europe from two high resolution climate change simulations, Q. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 133, 65-81, doi:10.1002/qj.13, 2007. (Pubitemid 46421391)
12. Bürger, G.: Expanded downscaling for generating local weather scenarios, Climate Res., 7, 111-128, doi:10.3354/cr0007111, 1996.
13. Bürger, G.: Dynamically vs. empirically downscaled medium-range precipitation forecasts, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 13, 1649-1658, doi:10.5194/hess-13-1649-2009, 2009.
14. Bürger, G. and Chen, Y.: Regression-based downscaling of spatial variability for hydrologic applications, J. Hydrol., 311, 299-317, 2005. (Pubitemid 41261615)
15. Bürger, G., Reusser, D., and Kneis, D.: Early flood warnings from empirical (expanded) downscaling of the full ECMWF Ensemble Prediction System, Water Resour. Res., 45, W10443, doi:10.1029/2009wr007779, 2009.
16. Bürger, G., Schulla, J., andWerner, A.: Estimates of future flow, including extremes, of the Columbia River headwaters, Water Resour. Res., 47, W10520, doi:10.1029/2010WR009716, 2011.
17. Bürger, G., Murdock, T. Q., Werner, A. T., Sobie, S. R., and Cannon, A. J.: Downscaling extremes - an intercomparison of multiple statistical methods for present climate, J. Climate, 25, 4366- 4388, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-11- 00408.1, 2012.
18. Butterworth, M. H., Semenov, M. A., Barnes, A., Moran, D., West, J. S., Bruce, D., and Fitt, L.: North-South divide: contrasting impacts of climate change on crop yields in Scotland and England, J. Roy. Soc. Int., 7, 123-130, 2010.
19. Chen, J., Brissette, F. O. P., and Leconte, R.: Uncertainty of downscaling method in quantifying the impact of climate change on hydrology, J. Hydrol., 401, 190-202, 2011.
20. Chiarle, M., Iannotti, S., Mortara, G., and Deline, P.: Recent debris flow occurrences associated with glaciers in the Alps, Global Planet. Chang., 56, 123-136, 2007.
21. Coles, S.: An Introduction to Statistical Modeling of Extreme Values, Springer, New York, 2001.
22. Crosta, G. B., Chen, H., and Lee, C. F.: Replay of the 1987 Val Pola Landslide, Italian Alps, Geomorphology, 60, 127-146, 2004. (Pubitemid 38531839)
23. Dee, D. P., Uppala, S. M., Simmons, A. J., Berrisford, P., Poli, P., Kobayashi, S., Andrae, U., Balmaseda, M. A., Balsamo, G., Bauer, P., Bechtold, P., Beljaars, A. C. M., van de Berg, L., Bidlot, J., Bormann, N., Delsol, C., Dragani, R., Fuentes, M., Geer, A. J., Haimberger, L., Healy, S. B., Hersbach, H., H'olm, E. V., Isaksen, L., Kallberg, P., Köhler, M., Matricardi, M., McNally, A. P., Monge-Sanz, B. M., Morcrette, J. J., Park, B. K., Peubey, C., de Rosnay, P., Tavolato, C., Th'epaut, J. N., and Vitart, F.: The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system, Q. J. Roy. Meteorol. Soc., 137, 553-597, doi:10.1002/qj.828, 2011.
24. D'equ'e, M., Somot, S., Sanchez-Gomez, E., Goodess, C., Jacob, D., Lenderink, G., and Christensen, O.: The spread amongst ENSEMBLES regional scenarios: regional climate models, driving general circulation models and interannual variability, Clim. Dynam., 38, 951-964, doi:10.1007/s00382-011-1053- x, 2011.
25. Dibike, Y. B. and Coulibaly, P.: Hydrologic impact of climate change in the Saguenay watershed: comparison of downscaling methods and hydrologic models, J. Hydrol., 307, 145-163, 2005. (Pubitemid 40743123)
26. Diffenbaugh, N. S., Pal, J. S., Trapp, R. J., and Giorgi, F.: Finescale processes regulate the response of extreme events to global climate change, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 102, 15774-15778, 2005. (Pubitemid 41552818)
27. Dobler, C.: Possible Changes in Flood Frequency in an Alpine Catchment, in: Risk and Planet Earth. Vulnerability, Natural Hazards, Integrated Adaptation Strategies, edited by: Dölemeyer, A., Zimmer, J., and Tetzlaff, G., 88-94, 2010.
28. Dobler, C., Stötter, J., and Schöberl, F.: Assessment of climate change impacts on the hydrology of the Lech Valley in northern Alps, J. Water Climate Change, 3, 207-218, 2010.
29. Easterling, D. R., Meehl, G. A., Parmesan, C., Changnon, S. A., Karl, T. R., and Mearns, L. O.: Climate Extremes: Observations, Modeling, and Impacts, Science, 289, 2068-2074, doi:10.1126/science.289.5487.2068, 2000.
30. Ekström, M., Fowler, H. J., Kilsby, C. G., and Jones, P. D.: New estimates of future changes in extreme rainfall across the UK using regional climate model integrations, 2. Future estimates and use in impact studies, J. Hydrol., 300, 234-251, 2005. (Pubitemid 39588516)
31. Engen-Skaugen, T.: Refinement of dynamically downscaled precipitation and temperature scenarios, Climatic Change, 84, 365- 382, doi:10.1007/s10584-007- 9251-6, 2007. (Pubitemid 350104649)
32. Fowler, H. J., Blenkinsop, S., and Tebaldi, C.: Linking climate change modelling to impacts studies: recent advances in downscaling techniques for hydrological modelling, Int. J. Climatol., 27, 1547-1578, doi:10.1002/joc.1556, 2007. (Pubitemid 47604181)
33. Frei, C. and Schär, C.: A precipitation climatology of the Alps from high-resolution rain-gauge observations, Int. J. Climatol., 18, 873-900, 1998. (Pubitemid 28519735)
34. Frei, C., Schöll, R., Fukutome, S., Schmidli, J., and Vidale, P. L.: Future change of precipitation extremes in Europe: Intercomparison of scenarios from regional climate models, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D06105, doi:10.1029/2005jd005965, 2006. (Pubitemid 43675911)
35. Hanel, M. and Buishand, T. A.: Multi-model analysis of RCM simulated 1-day to 30-day seasonal precipitation extremes in the Czech Republic, J. Hydrol., 412-413, 141-150, doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.09.020, 2012.
36. Harpham, C. and Wilby, R. L.: Multi-site downscaling of heavy daily precipitation occurrence and amounts, J. Hydrol., 312, 235-255, 2005. (Pubitemid 41392962)
37. Hashmi, M., Shamseldin, A., and Melville, B.: Comparison of SDSM and LARS-WG for simulation and downscaling of extreme precipitation events in a watershed, Stochastic Environ. Res. Risk Assess., 25, 475-484, doi:10.1007/s00477-010-0416-x, 2011.
38. Hawkins, E. and Sutton, R.: The Potential to Narrow Uncertainty in Regional Climate Predictions, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 90, 1095- 1107, doi:10.1175/2009bams2607.1, 2009.
39. Hawkins, E. and Sutton, R.: The potential to narrow uncertainty in projections of regional precipitation change, Clim. Dynam., 37, 407-418, doi:10.1007/s00382-010-0810-6, 2011.
40. Hundecha, Y. and B'ardossy, A.: Statistical downscaling of extremes of daily precipitation and temperature and construction of their future scenarios, Int. J. Climatol., 28, 589-610, doi:10.1002/joc.1563, 2008. (Pubitemid 351618842)
41. Lenderink, G., Mok, H. Y., Lee, T. C., and van Oldenborgh, G. J.: Scaling and trends of hourly precipitation extremes in two different climate zones - Hong Kong and the Netherlands, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 15, 3033-3041, doi:10.5194/hess-15-3033-2011, 2011.
42. Liu, Z., Xu, Z., Charles, S. P., Fu, G., and Liu, L.: Evaluation of two statistical downscaling models for daily precipitation over an arid basin in China, Int. J. Climatol., 31, 2006-2020, doi:10.1002/joc.2211, 2011.
43. Maraun, D., Wetterhall, F., Ireson, A. M., Chandler, R. E., Kendon, E. J., Widmann, M., Brienen, S., Rust, H. W., Sauter, T., Themeßl, M., Venema, V. K. C., Chun, K. P., Goodess, C. M., Jones, R. G., Onof, C., Vrac, M., and Thiele-Eich, I.: Precipitation downscaling under climate change: Recent developments to bridge the gap between dynamical models and the end user, Rev. Geophys., 48, RG3003, doi:10.1029/2009rg000314, 2010.
44. Martin, E., Giraud, G., Lejeune, Y., and Boudart, G.: Impact of a climate change on avalanche hazard, Ann. Glaciol., 32, 163-167, 2001. (Pubitemid 32667903)
45. Maurer, E.: Uncertainty in hydrologic impacts of climate change in the Sierra Nevada, California, under two emissions scenarios, Climatic Change, 82, 309-325, doi:10.1007/s10584-006-9180-9, 2007. (Pubitemid 46606967)
46. Maurer, E. P. and Duffy, P. B.: Uncertainty in projections of streamflow changes due to climate change in California, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L03704, doi:10.1029/2004gl021462, 2005. (Pubitemid 40578653)
47. Maurer, E. P. and Hidalgo, H. G.: Utility of daily vs. monthly large-scale climate data: an intercomparison of two statistical downscaling methods, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 12, 551-563, 10, http://www.hydrol-earth- syst-sci.net/12/551/10/.5194/hess-12-551-2008, 2008.
48. Mavromatis, T. and Hansen, J. W.: Interannual variability characteristics and simulated crop response of four stochastic weather generators, Agr. Forest Meteorol., 109, 283-296, 2001. (Pubitemid 32931187)
49. Meier, I. M.: Leben mit dem Hochwasser, Ausgewählte Hochwasserereignisse des 20. Jahrhunderts im Tiroler Lechtal, in: Innsbrucker Geographische Gesellschaft, Innsbrucker Jahresbericht 2001/2002, 5-29, 2002.
50. Menzel, L. and Bürger, G.: Climate change scenarios and runoff response in the Mulde catchment (Southern Elbe, Germany), J. Hydrol., 267, 53-64, 2002.
51. Nakicenovic, N., Alcamo, J., Davis, G., de Vries, B., Fenhann, J., Gaffin, S., Gregory, K., Grübler, A., Jung, T. Y., Kram, T., Rovere, E. L. L., Michaelis, L., Mori, S., Morita, T., Pepper, W., Pitcher, H., Price, L., Raihi, K., Roehl, A., Rogner, H.-H., Sankovski, A., Schlesinger, M., Shukla, P., Smith, S., Swart, R., Rooijen, S. V., Victor, N., and Dadi, Z.: Emission Scenarios. A Special Report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University press, Cambridge, UK, 2000.
52. O'Gorman, P. A. and Schneider, T.: The physical basis for increases in precipitation extremes in simulations of the 21st-century climate change, Proc. Natl. Aca. Sci., 106, 14773-14777, 2009.
53. Palmer, T. N. and Raisanen, J.: Quantifying the risk of extreme seasonal precipitation events in a changing climate, Nature, 415, 512-514, 2002. (Pubitemid 34130602)
54. Qian, B., Gameda, S., Hayhoe, H., Jong, R. D., and Bootsma, A.: Comparison of LARS-WG and AAFC-WG stochastic weather generators for diverse Canadian climates, Climate Res., 26, 175- 191, doi:10.3354/cr026175, 2004. (Pubitemid 39130975)
55. Qian, B., Gameda, S., and Hayhoe, H.: Performance of stochastic weather generators LARS-WG and AAFC-WG for reproducing daily extremes of diverse Canadian climates, Climate Res., 37, 17-33, doi:10.3354/cr00755, 2008.
56. Quintana-Segu'i, P., Habets, F., and Martin, E.: Comparison of past and future Mediterranean high and low extremes of precipitation and river flow projected using different statistical downscaling methods, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 11, 1411-1432, doi:10.5194/nhess-11-1411-2011, 2011.
57. Raetzo, H. R., Lateltin, O. L., Bollinger, D. B., and Tripet, J. T.: Hazard assessment in Switzerland - Codes of Practice for mass movements, B. Eng. Geol. Environ.t, 61, 263-268, doi:10.1007/s10064-002-0163-4, 2002. (Pubitemid 36017539)
58. Rummukainen, M.: Methods of statistical downscaling of GCM simulations. Reports Meteorology and Climatology 80, Tech. rep., Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, SE-601 76 Norrkping, Sweden, 1997.
59. Russo, S. and Sterl, A.: Global changes in seasonal means and extremes of precipitation from daily climate model data, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D01108, doi:10.1029/2011jd016260, 2012.
60. Schmidli, J., Goodess, C. M., Frei, C., Haylock, M. R., Hundecha, Y., Ribalaygua, J., and Schmith, T.: Statistical and dynamical downscaling of precipitation: An evaluation and comparison of scenarios for the European Alps, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D04105, doi:10.1029/2005jd007026, 2007. (Pubitemid 47489829)
61. Scibek, J. and Allen, D. M.: Modeled impacts of predicted climate change on recharge and groundwater levels, Water Resour. Res., 42, W11405, doi:10.1029/2005wr004742, 2006. (Pubitemid 46137810)
62. Semenov, M. A.: Development of high-resolution UKCIP02-based climate change scenarios in the UK, Agr. Forest Meteorol., 144, 127-138, 2007. (Pubitemid 46527963)
63. Semenov, M. A.: Simulation of extreme weather events by a stochastic weather generator, Climate Res., 35, 203-212, doi:10.3354/cr00731, 2008. (Pubitemid 351721161)
64. Semenov, M. A. and Barrow, E. M.: Use of a stochastic weather generator in the development of climate change scenarios, Climatic Change, 35, 397-414, doi:10.1023/a:1005342632279, 1997. (Pubitemid 27191191)
65. Semenov, M. A. and Stratonovitch, P.: Use of multi-model ensembles from global climate models for assessment of climate change impacts, Climate Res., 41, 1-14, doi:10.3354/cr00836, 2010.
66. Semenov, M. A., Brooks, R. J., Barrow, E. M., and Richardson, C. W.: Comparison of the WGEN and LARS-WG stochastic weather generators for diverse climates, Climate Res., 10, 95- 107, doi:10.3354/cr010095, 1998. (Pubitemid 29126268)
67. Simmons, A. S., Uppala, D. D., and Kobayashi, S.: ERA-interim: new ECMWF reanalysis products from 1989 onwards, ECMWF Newsletter, 110, 29-35, 2007.
68. Smiatek, G., Kunstmann, H., Knoche, R., and Marx, A.: Precipitation and temperature statistics in high-resolution regional climate models: Evaluation for the European Alps, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D19107, doi:10.1029/2008jd011353, 2009.
69. Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Alley, R. B., Berntsen, T.,Bindoff, N. L., Chen, Z., Chidthaisong, A., Gregory, J. M., Hegerl, G. C., Heimann, M., Hewitson, B., Hoskins, B. J., Joos, F., Jouzel, J., Kattsov, V., Lohmann, U., Matsuno, T., Molina, M., Nicholls, N., Overpeck, J., Raga, G., Ramaswamy, V., Ren, J., Rusticucci, M., Somerville, R., Stocker, T. F., Whetton, P.,Wood, R. A., and Wratt, D.: Technical Summary, in: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K. B., Tignor, M., and Miller, H. L., Cambridge University Press, UK, 2007.
70. Sun, Y., Solomon, S., Dai, A., and Portmann, R. W.: How Often Will It Rain?, J. Climate, 20, 4801-4818, doi:10.1175/jcli4263.1, 2007. (Pubitemid 47617982)
71. Sunyer, M. A., Madsen, H., and Ang, P. H.: A comparison of different regional climate models and statistical downscaling methods for extreme rainfall estimation under climate change, Atmos. Res., 103, 119-128, 2012.
72. Szymczak, S., Bollschweiler, M., Stoffel, M., and Dikau, R.: Debris-flow activity and snow avalanches in a steep watershed of the Valais Alps (Switzerland): Dendrogeomorphic event reconstruction and identification of triggers, Geomorphology, 116, 107-114, 2010.
73. Thieken, A., Cammerer, C., Dobler, C., Lammel, J., Bronstert, A., Stötter, J., and Schöberl, F.: Analysing changes in flood risks in an Alpine catchment, in: Managing Alpine Future II. Proceedings of the Innsbruck Conference, edited by: Borsdorf, A., Sötter, J., and Veulliet, E., 97-106, 2011.
74. Tolika, K., Anagnostopoulou, C., Maheras, P., and Vafiadis, M.: Simulation of future changes in extreme rainfall and temperature conditions over the Greek area: A comparison of two statistical downscaling approaches, Global Planet. Chang., 63, 132-151, 2008.
75. Tryhorn, L. and DeGaetano, A.: A comparison of techniques for downscaling extreme precipitation over the Northeastern United States, Int. J. Climatol., 31, 1975-1989, doi:10.1002/joc.2208, 2011.
76. Vinet, F.: Climatology of hail in France, Atmos. Res., 56, 309-323, 2001. (Pubitemid 32276769)
77. Wehner, M., Smith, R., Bala, G., and Duffy, P.: The effect of horizontal resolution on simulation of very extreme US precipitation events in a global atmosphere model, Clim. Dynam., 34, 241- 247, doi:10.1007/s00382-009-0656-y, 2010.
78. Wetterhall, F., Bardossy, A., Chen, D., Halldin, S., and Xu, C. Y.: Statistical downscaling of daily precipitation over Sweden using GCM output, Theor. Appl. Climatol., 96, 95-103, doi:10.1007/s00704-008-0038-0, 2009.
79. Wilby, R. L., Charles, S. P., Zorita, E., Timbal, B., Whetton, P., and Mearns, L. O.: Guidelines for use of climate scenarios developed from statistical downscaling methods, Supporting material of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, available from the DDC of IPCC TGCIA, 27, 2004.
80. Willems, P. and Vrac, M.: Statistical precipitation downscaling for small-scale hydrological impact investigations of climate change, J. Hydrology, 402, 193-205, 2011.