Meteorological factors influencing characteristics of heat waves and cold spells over Central Europe in EURO-CORDEX RCMs

0474439 - ÚFA 2018 DE eng A - Abstract
Plavcová, Eva - Kyselý, Jan
Meteorological factors influencing characteristics of heat waves and cold spells over Central Europe in EURO-CORDEX RCMs.
Geophysical Research Abstracts. Göttingen: European Geosciences Union, 2017. EGU2017-2033. ISSN 1607-7962.
[EGU General Assembly 2017. 23.04.2017-28.04.2017, Vienna]
Institutional support: RVO:68378289
Keywords : heat waves * cold spells * regional climate models
Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2017/EGU2017-2033.pdf

We evaluate the ability of current regional climate models (RCMs) to simulate temporal characteristics of heat
waves and cold spells over Central Europe. We compare EURO-CORDEX RCMs driven by both global climate
models and the ERA-INTERIM reanalysis against observations over the reference period 1980–2005. We focus
on heat waves in summer and cold spells in winter over Central Europe (48.5–51.5 N and 12–18 E).
We find that some RCMs have difficulties to reproduce basic characteristics of heat waves and cold spells (such as
frequency and duration). Most RCMs overestimate length of the longest heat waves and cold spells. We detected
that models have a stronger tendency to cluster days of heat waves and cold spells in individual years compared
to observations, which results in more extreme seasons in RCMs. We analyze climatological characteristics
and meteorological factors related to the persistence of heat waves and cold spells, with focus on simulated
atmospheric circulation and precipitation deficits.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0271635