Future projections of precipitation change over the Korean peninsula

Abstract

Global climate change induced by an increased level of greenhouse gases is typically estimated by global general circulation model (GCMs). However, this approach has been difficult to provide regional details due to GCM’s limitations in horizontal resolution as well as in physical parameterizations. To overcome such difficulty, dynamical downscaling methods have been proposed, through which local to regional climatic conditions can be produced in greater details. the Pseudo Global Warming Method (PGWM) introduced recently by Kimura (2007) and Sato et al. (2007) adopts a mixture of observations and GCM simulations to carry out regional climate model (RCM) simulation. The present study aims to investigate climate change in an anthropogenically warmed climate with the aid of the PGWM, with particular focus on the summer rainfall variability over East Asia.The PGWM relies on the differences between present and future climates simulated by GCMs. The selection of GCMs used for downscaling, therefore, is of central importance for the PGW simulations. It is generally believed that a GCM’s ability to realistically simulate the present climate could be considered a measure of its capability to project the future. In this context, we assessed the fidelity of the present East Asian monsoon simulated by a suite of coupled GCMs (CGCMs) by applying a multi-variate EOF (MVEOF) to climatological monthly rainfall (PR) and zonal wirizontal resolution as well as in physical parameterizations. To overcome such difficulty, dynamical downscaling methods have been proposed, through which local to regional climatic conditions can be produced in greater details. the Pseudo Global Warming Method (PGWM) introduced recently by Kimura (2007) and Sato et al. (2007) adopts a mixture of observations and GCM simulations to carry out regional climate model (RCM) simulation. The present study aims to investigate climate change in an anthropogenically warmed climate with the aid of the PGWM, with particular focus on the summer rainfall variability over East Asia.The PGWM relies on the differences between present and future climates simulated by GCMs. The selection of GCMs used for downscaling, therefore, is of central importance for the PGW simulations. It is generally believed that a GCM’s ability to realistically simulate the present climate could be considered a measure of its capability to project the future. In this context, we assessed the fidelity of the present East Asian monsoon simulated by a suite of coupled GCMs (CGCMs) by applying a multi-variate EOF (MVEOF) to climatological monthly rainfall (PR) and zonal wi