Evaluating the uncertainty of climate model structure and bias correction on the hydrological impact of projected climate change in a Mediterranean catchment

• DOI: 10.1016/j.ejrh.2022.101120
• Publication Date: 2022-06-03T21:46:49Z
• Authors: Alfonso Senatore; Domenico Fuoco; Mario Maiolo; Giuseppe Mendicino; Gerhard Smiatek; Harald Kunstmann
• Keywords: Baseline (sea); Representative Concentration Pathways

Crati River Basin, Southern Italy, Central Mediterranean. We evaluate the combined effect of multiple global and regional climate model (GCM-RCM) combinations bias correction (BC) methods on hydrological impact projected change. Under representative concentration pathway RCP4.5, 15 EURO-CORDEX members, combining 6 GCMs five high-resolution (0.11°) RCMs, provide meteorological input for a spatially distributed model. RCM-derived data are uncorrected corrected through three empirical methods, leading to 60 different simulations ~30-year future periods in 2020–2096, compared baseline 1975–2005. The uncertainty models is evaluated main variables using an analysis variance (ANOVA) method. Results highlight considerable agreement projecting decreasing trend available water resources (on average, −70 % snow, −8 root zone soil moisture −17 river runoff period 2070–2096), due remarkable mean temperature increase less accentuated precipitation reduction. evaluation shows that (1) primary source driving GCM, (2) BC smooth not negligible way, especially concerning discharge (for each period, reduction without about 3 higher than with BC), therefore contributing total uncertainty.