Regional Climate Modeling with COSMO-CLM: Performance Assessment and Climate Projections

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Climatology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2020) | Viewed by 37930

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Guest Editor
Meteorology Laboratory, CIRA Italian Aerospace Research Center, 81043 Capua, CE, Italy
Interests: regional climate modeling; climate changes; numerical weather prediction models; extreme events
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Guest Editor
Deutscher Wetterdienst, Frankfurter Str. 135, 63067 Offenbach, Germany
Interests: (regional) climate modelling; climate change; quality assurance for climate data

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The COSMO-CLM is a non-hydrostatic regional community climate model based on the COSMO model, which was originally developed by the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD). The climate limited-area mode of the COSMO model was developed and is maintained by the Climate Limited-area Modelling Community (CLM-Community). The model has been used for simulations on time scales up to centuries and spatial resolutions between 1 and 50 km. In the last ten years, it was used for downscaling for many regions of the world and for many of the global climate simulations available, in particular in the frame of the CORDEX and CORDEX CORE initiatives, in order to provide a core set of comprehensive and homogeneous projections across almost all CORDEX domains.

The main aim of this Special Issue is to summarize the recent progress achieved with COSMO-CLM. It represents an important dynamical downscaling tool for providing the information needed for assessing climate change impacts, and a powerful model for improving our understanding of regional climate processes. The following four important segments should be at least included:

  • Investigation of the capabilities of COSMO-CLM at very high resolution (convection resolving) to describe the mesoscale features of climate in a recent-past period for selected areas;
  • Assessment of the effects of increasing resolution on the quality of results; such an analysis could be useful to stimulate in the future the scientific community to consider that, at least in some areas, high-resolution simulations could provide good earnings;
  • Climate projections over targeted regions by employing the IPCC RCP scenarios, widening the range of projections already available in the literature but with higher resolution;
  • Assessment of the model’s ability to (realistically) represent the extreme weather events in the present climate as a preliminary and fundamental step to assess changes regarding extreme weather events expected under anthropogenic climate change.

Dr. Edoardo Bucchignani
Dr. Christian Steger 
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • COSMO-CLM
  • High-resolution simulations
  • Regional scenarios
  • Model assessment
  • Climate projections
  • Extreme events

Published Papers (12 papers)

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Editorial

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3 pages, 167 KiB  
Editorial
Regional Climate Modelling with COSMO-CLM: History and Perspectives
by Christian Steger and Edoardo Bucchignani
Atmosphere 2020, 11(11), 1250; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11111250 - 20 Nov 2020
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2509
Abstract
The history of the COSMO (COnsortium for Small-scale Modelling) model goes back to the early 1990s, when the Deutscher Wetterdienst (German Meteorological Service, DWD) decided to develop a non-hydrostatic model, the Lokalmodell (LM) [...] Full article

Research

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21 pages, 7204 KiB  
Communication
Introducing a New Detailed Long-Term COSMO-CLM Hindcast for the Russian Arctic and the First Results of Its Evaluation
by Vladimir Platonov and Mikhail Varentsov
Atmosphere 2021, 12(3), 350; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12030350 - 08 Mar 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2279
Abstract
Diverse and severe weather conditions and rapid climate change rates in the Arctic emphasize the need for high-resolution climatic and environmental data that cannot be obtained from the scarce observational networks. This study presents a new detailed hydrometeorological dataset for the Russian Arctic [...] Read more.
Diverse and severe weather conditions and rapid climate change rates in the Arctic emphasize the need for high-resolution climatic and environmental data that cannot be obtained from the scarce observational networks. This study presents a new detailed hydrometeorological dataset for the Russian Arctic region, obtained as a long-term hindcast with the nonhydrostatic atmospheric model COSMO-CLM for the 1980–2016 period. The modeling workflow, evaluation techniques, and preliminary analysis of the obtained dataset are discussed. The model domain included the Barents, Kara, and Laptev Seas with ≈12-km grid spacing. The optimal model setup was chosen based on preliminary simulations for several summer and winter periods with varied options, and included the usage of ERA-Interim reanalysis data as forcing data, the new model version 5.05 with so-called ICON-based physics, and a spectral nudging technique. The wind speed and temperature climatology in the new COSMO-CLM dataset closely agreed with the ERA-Interim reanalysis, but with detailed spatial patterns. The added value of the higher-resolution COSMO-CLM data with respect to the ERA-Interim was most pronounced for higher wind speeds during downslope windstorms with the influence of mountain ranges on the temperature patterns, including surface temperature inversions. The potential applications and plans of further product development are also discussed. Full article
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20 pages, 5726 KiB  
Article
A Comparison between One-Step and Two-Step Nesting Strategy in the Dynamical Downscaling of Regional Climate Model COSMO-CLM at 2.2 km Driven by ERA5 Reanalysis
by Mario Raffa, Alfredo Reder, Marianna Adinolfi and Paola Mercogliano
Atmosphere 2021, 12(2), 260; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12020260 - 16 Feb 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3380
Abstract
Recently, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) has released a new generation of reanalysis, acknowledged as ERA5, representing at the present the most plausible picture for the current climate. Although ERA5 enhancements, in some cases, its coarse spatial resolution (~31 [...] Read more.
Recently, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) has released a new generation of reanalysis, acknowledged as ERA5, representing at the present the most plausible picture for the current climate. Although ERA5 enhancements, in some cases, its coarse spatial resolution (~31 km) could still discourage a direct use of precipitation fields. Such a gap could be faced dynamically downscaling ERA5 at convection permitting scale (resolution < 4 km). On this regard, the selection of the most appropriate nesting strategy (direct one-step against nested two-step) represents a pivotal issue for saving time and computational resources. Two questions may be raised within this context: (i) may the dynamical downscaling of ERA5 accurately represents past precipitation patterns? and (ii) at what extent may the direct nesting strategy performances be adequately for this scope? This work addresses these questions evaluating two ERA5-driven experiments at ~2.2 km grid spacing over part of the central Europe, run using the regional climate model COSMO-CLM with different nesting strategies, for the period 2007–2011. Precipitation data are analysed at different temporal and spatial scales with respect to gridded observational datasets (i.e., E-OBS and RADKLIM-RW) and existing reanalysis products (i.e., ERA5-Land and UERRA). The present work demonstrates that the one-step experiment tendentially outperforms the two-step one when there is no spectral nudging, providing results at different spatial and temporal scales in line with the other existing reanalysis products. However, the results can be highly model and event dependent as some different aspects might need to be considered (i.e., the nesting strategies) during the configuration phase of the climate experiments. For this reason, a clear and consolidated recommendation on this topic cannot be stated. Such a level of confidence could be achieved in future works by increasing the number of cities and events analysed. Nevertheless, these promising results represent a starting point for the optimal experimental configuration assessment, in the frame of future climate studies. Full article
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24 pages, 72036 KiB  
Article
Evaluating the Urban Canopy Scheme TERRA_URB in the COSMO Model for Selected European Cities
by Valeria Garbero, Massimo Milelli, Edoardo Bucchignani, Paola Mercogliano, Mikhail Varentsov, Inna Rozinkina, Gdaliy Rivin, Denis Blinov, Hendrik Wouters, Jan-Peter Schulz, Ulrich Schättler, Francesca Bassani, Matthias Demuzere and Francesco Repola
Atmosphere 2021, 12(2), 237; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12020237 - 09 Feb 2021
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 4232
Abstract
The increase in built surfaces constitutes the main reason for the formation of the Urban Heat Island (UHI), that is a metropolitan area significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas. The urban heat islands and other urban-induced climate feedbacks may amplify heat stress [...] Read more.
The increase in built surfaces constitutes the main reason for the formation of the Urban Heat Island (UHI), that is a metropolitan area significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas. The urban heat islands and other urban-induced climate feedbacks may amplify heat stress and urban flooding under climate change and therefore to predict them correctly has become essential. Currently in the COSMO model, cities are represented by natural land surfaces with an increased surface roughness length and a reduced vegetation cover, but this approach is unable to correctly reproduce the UHI effect. By increasing the model resolution, a representation of the main physical processes that characterize the urban local meteorology should be addressed, in order to better forecast temperature, moisture and precipitation in urban environments. Within the COSMO Consortium a bulk parameterization scheme (TERRA_URB or TU) has been developed. It parametrizes the effects of buildings, streets and other man-made impervious surfaces on energy, moist and momentum exchanges between the surface and atmosphere, and additionally accounts for the anthropogenic heat flux as a heat source from the surface to the atmosphere. TU implements an impervious water-storage parameterization, and the Semi-empirical Urban canopy parametrization (SURY) that translates 3D urban canopy into bulk parameters. This paper presents evaluation results of the TU scheme in high-resolution simulations with a recent COSMO model version for selected European cities, namely Turin, Naples and Moscow. The key conclusion of the work is that the TU scheme in the COSMO model reasonably reproduces UHI effect and improves air temperature forecasts for all the investigated urban areas, despite each city has very different morphological characteristics. Our results highlight potential benefits of a new turbulence scheme and the representation of skin-layer temperature (for vegetation) in the model performance. Our model framework provides perspectives for enhancing urban climate modelling, although further investigations in improving model parametrizations, calibration and the use of more realistic urban canopy parameters are needed. Full article
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27 pages, 20080 KiB  
Article
High-Resolution Simulation of Polar Lows over Norwegian and Barents Seas Using the COSMO-CLM and ICON Models for the 2019–2020 Cold Season
by Anastasia Revokatova, Michail Nikitin, Gdaliy Rivin, Inna Rozinkina, Andrei Nikitin and Ekaterina Tatarinovich
Atmosphere 2021, 12(2), 137; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12020137 - 22 Jan 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2345
Abstract
The lack of meteorological observations at high latitudes and the small size and relatively short lifetime of polar lows (PLs) constitute a problem in the simulation and prediction of these phenomena by numerical models. On the other hand, PLs, which are rapidly developing, [...] Read more.
The lack of meteorological observations at high latitudes and the small size and relatively short lifetime of polar lows (PLs) constitute a problem in the simulation and prediction of these phenomena by numerical models. On the other hand, PLs, which are rapidly developing, can lead to such extreme weather events as stormy waves, strong winds, the icing of ships, and snowfalls with low visibility, which can influence communication along the Arctic seas. This article is devoted to studying the possibility of the numerical simulation and prediction of polar lows by different model configurations and resolutions. The results of the numerical experiments for the Norwegian and Barents seas with grid spacings of 6.5 and 2 km using the ICON-Ru configurations of the ICON (ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic) model and with a grid spacing of 6.5 km using the COSMO-CLM (Climate Limited-area Modeling) configuration of the COSMO (COnsortium for Small-scale MOdelling) model are presented for the cold season of 2019–2020. All the used model configurations demonstrated the possibility of the realistic simulation of polar lows. The ICON model showed slightly more accurate results for the analyzed cases. The best results showed runs with lead times of less than a day. Full article
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19 pages, 7410 KiB  
Article
Evaluation and Expected Changes of Summer Precipitation at Convection Permitting Scale with COSMO-CLM over Alpine Space
by Marianna Adinolfi, Mario Raffa, Alfredo Reder and Paola Mercogliano
Atmosphere 2021, 12(1), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12010054 - 31 Dec 2020
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 5483
Abstract
There is an ongoing debate in the climate community about the benefits of convection-permitting models that explicitly resolve convection and other thermodynamical processes. An increasing number of studies show improvements in Regional Climate Model (RCM) performances when the grid spacing is increased to [...] Read more.
There is an ongoing debate in the climate community about the benefits of convection-permitting models that explicitly resolve convection and other thermodynamical processes. An increasing number of studies show improvements in Regional Climate Model (RCM) performances when the grid spacing is increased to 1-km scale. Up until now, such studies have revealed that convection-permitting models confer significant advantages in representing orographic regions, producing high-order statistics, predicting events with small temporal and spatial scales, and representing convective organization. The focus of this work is on the analysis of summer precipitation over the Alpine space. More specifically, the driving data are downscaled using the RCM COSMO-CLM first at an intermediate resolution (12 km) over the European Domain of Coordinated Downscaling Experiment (EURO-CORDEX domain). Then, a further downscaling at 3 km, nested into the previous one, is performed over the Alpine domain to exploit the results over a complex orography context. Experiments of evaluation, historical and far future under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) RCP8.5 scenario have been considered. Indices as mean precipitation, frequency, intensity, and heavy precipitation are employed in daily and hourly analyses. The results, observed from the analysis of 10 year-long simulations, provide preliminary indications, highlighting significant differences of the convection permitting simulations with respect to the driving one, especially at an hourly time scale. Moreover, future projections suggest that the convection permitting simulation refines and enhances the projected patterns, compared with the coarser resolution. Full article
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18 pages, 5973 KiB  
Article
Performance Evaluation of High-Resolution Simulations with COSMO over South Italy
by Edoardo Bucchignani and Paola Mercogliano
Atmosphere 2021, 12(1), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12010045 - 31 Dec 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2486
Abstract
This study aims to assess the capabilities of a weather forecasting system based on simulations performed with the COSMO (COnsortium for Small-scale Modeling) model over a domain located in southern Italy, employing a spatial resolution of about 1 km, driven by ECMWF-IFS global [...] Read more.
This study aims to assess the capabilities of a weather forecasting system based on simulations performed with the COSMO (COnsortium for Small-scale Modeling) model over a domain located in southern Italy, employing a spatial resolution of about 1 km, driven by ECMWF-IFS global data. The model is run daily at the Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA), and the evaluation was performed from January to May 2018 using a combination of observational data, specifically data provided by the CIRA meteorological station, wind profiler and ceilometer. Moreover, data provided by radio sounding located at Pratica di Mare and ground stations at two other locations were also used. A model configuration optimized through a tuning procedure over the domain considered was employed, while the evaluation was performed by comparing daily values of several variables and using standard monitoring indices. The results highlight that the model has good capability in reproducing daily values of temperature, while precipitation intensity is generally underestimated, even if rain patterns are well captured (alternating rainy and dry days). Good agreement is also reported for wind speed, especially at 100 and 500 m altitude. Regarding radio sounding data, the COSMO model configuration selected can reproduce the vertical profile of temperature and dew point, with the exception of inversion points. Evaluation against ceilometer data is achieved in terms of cloud height and planetary boundary layer height. Full article
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20 pages, 8133 KiB  
Article
Circulation Specific Precipitation Patterns over Svalbard and Projected Future Changes
by Andreas Dobler, Julia Lutz, Oskar Landgren and Jan Erik Haugen
Atmosphere 2020, 11(12), 1378; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11121378 - 21 Dec 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2803
Abstract
Precipitation on Svalbard can generally be linked to the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Atlantic. Using an automated circulation type classification, we show that weather type statistics are well represented in the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model at base resolution (MPI-ESM-LR). For [...] Read more.
Precipitation on Svalbard can generally be linked to the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Atlantic. Using an automated circulation type classification, we show that weather type statistics are well represented in the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model at base resolution (MPI-ESM-LR). For a future climate projection following the Representative Concentration Pathway scenario RCP8.5, we find only small changes in the statistics. However, convection permitting simulations with the regional climate model from the Consortium for Small-scale Modeling in climate mode (COSMO-CLM) covering Svalbard at 2.5 km demonstrate an increase in precipitation for all seasons. About 74% of the increase are coming from changes under cyclonic weather situations. The precipitation changes are strongly related to differences in atmospheric conditions, while the contribution from the frequencies of weather types is small. Observations on Svalbard suggest that the general weather situation favouring heavy precipitation events is a strong south-southwesterly flow with advection of water vapour from warmer areas. This is reproduced by the COSMO-CLM simulations. In the future projections, the maximum daily precipitation amounts are further increasing. At the same time, weather types with less moisture advection towards Svalbard are becoming more important. Full article
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31 pages, 17089 KiB  
Article
Impact of Urban Canopy Parameters on a Megacity’s Modelled Thermal Environment
by Mikhail Varentsov, Timofey Samsonov and Matthias Demuzere
Atmosphere 2020, 11(12), 1349; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11121349 - 12 Dec 2020
Cited by 31 | Viewed by 3971
Abstract
Urban canopy parameters (UCPs) are essential in order to accurately model the complex interplay between urban areas and their environment. This study compares three different approaches to define the UCPs for Moscow (Russia), using the COSMO numerical weather prediction and climate model coupled [...] Read more.
Urban canopy parameters (UCPs) are essential in order to accurately model the complex interplay between urban areas and their environment. This study compares three different approaches to define the UCPs for Moscow (Russia), using the COSMO numerical weather prediction and climate model coupled to TERRA_URB urban parameterization. In addition to the default urban description based on the global datasets and hard-coded constants (1), we present a protocol to define the required UCPs based on Local Climate Zones (LCZs) (2) and further compare it with a reference UCP dataset, assembled from OpenStreetMap data, recent global land cover data and other satellite imagery (3). The test simulations are conducted for contrasting summer and winter conditions and are evaluated against a dense network of in-situ observations. For the summer period, advanced approaches (2) and (3) show almost similar performance and provide noticeable improvements with respect to default urban description (1). Additional improvements are obtained when using spatially varying urban thermal parameters instead of the hard-coded constants. The LCZ-based approach worsens model performance for winter however, due to the underestimation of the anthropogenic heat flux (AHF). These results confirm the potential of LCZs in providing internationally consistent urban data for weather and climate modelling applications, as well as supplementing more comprehensive approaches. Yet our results also underline the continued need to improve the description of built-up and impervious areas and the AHF in urban parameterizations. Full article
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13 pages, 23131 KiB  
Article
COSMO-CLM Performance and Projection of Daily and Hourly Temperatures Reaching 50 °C or Higher in Southern Iraq
by Yoav Levi and Yossi Mann
Atmosphere 2020, 11(11), 1155; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11111155 - 26 Oct 2020
Viewed by 2235
Abstract
Fortunately, extreme temperatures reaching 50 °C are not common on our planet. The capability of the consortium for small-scale modelling regional climate model (COSMO-CLM), with 0.44° resolution, to project future trends of an extremely hot environment with direct model output (DMO) is questioned. [...] Read more.
Fortunately, extreme temperatures reaching 50 °C are not common on our planet. The capability of the consortium for small-scale modelling regional climate model (COSMO-CLM), with 0.44° resolution, to project future trends of an extremely hot environment with direct model output (DMO) is questioned. The temperature distribution of COSMO-CLM output driven by reanalysis and RCP4.5 scenario in southern Iraq was remarkably good, with a slight temperature overestimation, compared to the overlapping observations from Basra airport. An attempt to enhance the DMO with a statistical downscaling method did not improve the results. The COSMO-CLM projection indicates that a very sharp increase in the number of consecutive hours and days with the temperature reaching 50 °C or higher will occur. During 1951–1980, consecutive hours and days reaching 50 °C were rare events. By the end of the century, the projected climate in southern Iraq contains up to 13 consecutive hours and 21 consecutive days reaching 50 °C or higher. As the average projected temperature will increase by ~2 °C compared to the recent climate, new records may be expected. However, the major climate change feature is the increase in consecutive hours and days of very high temperatures. These findings require adaptation measures to support future habitation of the region. Full article
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23 pages, 8115 KiB  
Article
High-Resolution COSMO-CLM Modeling and an Assessment of Mesoscale Features Caused by Coastal Parameters at Near-Shore Arctic Zones (Kara Sea)
by Vladimir Platonov and Alexander Kislov
Atmosphere 2020, 11(10), 1062; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11101062 - 06 Oct 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2324
Abstract
Coastal Arctic regions are characterized by severe mesoscale weather events that include extreme wind speeds, and the rugged shore conditions, islands, and mountain ranges contribute to mesoscale event formation. High-resolution atmospheric modeling is a suitable tool to reproduce and estimate some of these [...] Read more.
Coastal Arctic regions are characterized by severe mesoscale weather events that include extreme wind speeds, and the rugged shore conditions, islands, and mountain ranges contribute to mesoscale event formation. High-resolution atmospheric modeling is a suitable tool to reproduce and estimate some of these events, and so the regional non-hydrostatic climate atmospheric model COSMO-CLM (Consortium for Small-scale Modeling developed within the framework of the international science group CLM-Community) was used to reproduce mesoscale circulation in the Arctic coast zone under various surface conditions. Mid-term experiments were run over the Arctic domain, especially over the Kara Sea region, using the downscaling approach, with ≈12 km and ≈3 km horizontal grid sizes. The best model configuration was determined using standard verification methods; however, the model run verification process raised questions over its quality and aptness based on the high level of small-scale coastline diversity and associated relief properties. Modeling case studies for high wind speeds were used to study hydrodynamic mesoscale circulation reproduction, and we found that although the model could not describe the associated wind dynamic features at all scales using ≈3 km resolution, it could simulate different scales of island wind shadow effects, tip jets, downslope winds, vortex chains, and so on, quite realistically. This initial success indicated that further research could reveal more about the detailed properties of mesoscale circulations and extreme winds by applying finer resolution modeling. Full article
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18 pages, 3128 KiB  
Article
Effect of Model Resolution on Intense and Extreme Precipitationinthe Mediterranean Region
by Dario Conte, Silvio Gualdi and Piero Lionello
Atmosphere 2020, 11(7), 699; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11070699 - 01 Jul 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2590
Abstract
This study explores the role of model resolution on the simulation of precipitation and on the estimate of its future change in the Mediterranean region. It compares the results of two regional climate models (RCMs, with two different horizontal grid resolutions, 0.44 and [...] Read more.
This study explores the role of model resolution on the simulation of precipitation and on the estimate of its future change in the Mediterranean region. It compares the results of two regional climate models (RCMs, with two different horizontal grid resolutions, 0.44 and 0.11 degs, covering the whole Mediterranean region) and of the global climate model (GCM, 0.75 degs) that has provided the boundary conditions for them. The regional climate models include an interactive oceanic component with a resolution of 1/16 degs. The period 1960–2100 and the representative concentration pathways RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 are considered. The results show that, in the present climate, increasing resolution increases total precipitation and its extremes over steep orography, while it has the opposite effect over flat areas and the sea. Considering climate change, in all simulations, total precipitation will decrease over most of the considered domain except at the northern boundary, where it will increase. Extreme precipitation will increase over most of the northern Mediterranean region and decrease over the sea and some southern areas. Further, the overall probability of precipitation (frequency of wet days) significantly decreases over most of the region, but wet days will be characterized with precipitation intensity higher than the present. Our analysis shows that: (1) these projected changes are robust with respect to the considered range of model resolution; (2) increasing the resolution (within the considered resolution range) decreases the magnitude of these climate change effects. However, it is likely that resolution plays a less important role than other factors, such as the different physics of regional and global climate models. It remains to be investigated whether further increasing the resolution (and reaching the scale explicitly permitting convection) would change this conclusion. Full article
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