Underestimated interannual variability of East Asian summer rainfall under climate change

• Published in: Theoretical and applied climatology Vol. 135; no. 3-4; pp. 911 - 920
• Main Authors: Ren, Yongjian, Song, Lianchun, Xiao, Ying, Du, Liangmin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01.02.2019; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analysis; Annual variations; Anomalies; Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Atmospheric Sciences; Climate change; Climate models; Climate science; Climatological means; Climatology; Computer simulation; Drought; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Floods; Global temperature changes; Global warming; History; Interannual variability; Intercomparison; Mean precipitation; Ocean circulation; Original Paper; Plankton; Precipitation; Precipitation (Meteorology); Precipitation variability; Rain; Rainfall; Rainfall-climatic change relationships; Summer; Summer rainfall; Variability; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control; East Asia; China
• ISSN: 0177-798X; 1434-4483
• DOI: 10.1007/s00704-018-2398-4

This study evaluates the performance of climate models in simulating the climatological mean and interannual variability of East Asian summer rainfall (EASR) using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Compared to the observation, the interannual variability of EASR during 1979–2005 is underestimated by the CMIP5 with a range of 0.86~16.08%. Based on bias correction of CMIP5 simulations with historical data, the reliability of future projections will be enhanced. The corrected EASR under representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5 increases by 5.6 and 7.5% during 2081–2100 relative to the baseline of 1986–2005, respectively. After correction, the areas with both negative and positive anomalies decrease, which are mainly located in the South China Sea and central China, and southern China and west of the Philippines, separately. In comparison to the baseline, the interannual variability of EASR increases by 20.8% under RCP4.5 but 26.2% under RCP8.5 in 2006–2100, which is underestimated by 10.7 and 11.1% under both RCPs in the original CMIP5 simulation. Compared with the mean precipitation, the interannual variability of EASR is notably larger under global warming. Thus, the probabilities of floods and droughts may increase in the future.