Geostatistical assessment of HadCM3 simulations via NCEP reanalyses over Europe

• Published in: Atmospheric science letters Vol. 5; no. 6; pp. 118 - 133
• Main Author: Lucio, P. S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.07.2004; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: Aggregation; Climate; Climate change; Climate models; Climatic extremes; Climatology; Extreme values; Geostatistics; Interpolation; Kriging interpolation; Pattern analysis; spatial pattern recognition; Statistical models; Stochastic processes; Stochasticity; Temperature extremes; Uncertainty; uncertainty pattern characterization; universal kriging; variogram; New York; United States > US
• ISSN: 1530-261X; 1530-261X
• DOI: 10.1002/asl.73

This article attempts to quantify the spatial uncertainties associated with extreme temperature's response, by assessing extremes derived from climate model data. This is undertaken by a comparison of the spatial pattern of a long‐term time‐series aggregation (1960/61–1989/90) for extreme temperatures simulated by a particular GCM (HadCM3) to that of NCEP Reanalyses, which are considered as ‘truth’, over the MICE (Modelling the Impact of Climate Extremes—EU Project) spatial domain. Since evaluation of models is crucial to assessing future scenarios, the aim of this study is to investigate whether the extreme values predicted by the HadCM3 climate model can simulate those produced by NCEP Reanalyses, assuming that the extremes of both models are realisations of the same spatial stochastic process. To get more useful information about the uncertainties surrounding spatial climate projection, one also has to analyse the pattern of temperature extremes in terms of their anomalies. A common technical issue in the assessment of numerical spatial models is based on the geostatistical interpolation by kriging with the residual analysis. This methodology is very important and useful for guiding an evolutionary statistical model‐building process. This study leads to the conclusion that the HadCM3 Simulations do not realistically reproduce the NCEP Reanalyses, despite the fact that the climatology of extremes has demonstrated very similar spatial patterns. It is likely therefore that such instability may persist in the future. Copyright © 2004 Royal Meteorological Society