DOI: 10.1002/2015JD024341
论文题名: Quantifying the sources of uncertainty in upper air climate variables
作者: Eghdamirad S. ; Johnson F. ; Woldemeskel F. ; Sharma A.
刊名: Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
ISSN: 2169897X
出版年: 2016
卷: 121, 期: 8 起始页码: 3859
结束页码: 3874
语种: 英语
英文关键词: climate change
; statistical downscaling
; uncertainty
英文摘要: Future estimates of precipitation and streamflow are of utmost interest in hydrological climate change impact assessments. Just as important as the estimate itself, is the variance around the ensemble mean of the projections, this variance being defined as uncertainty in the context of this study. This uncertainty in the hydrological variables of interest is affected by uncertainty in upper air climate variables which are used in statistical downscaling of precipitation or streamflow. Here the extent of uncertainty in upper air climate variables has been assessed for a selection of commonly used atmospheric variables for downscaling, namely, geopotential height and its difference in the north-south direction, specific humidity, and eastward and northward wind speeds. Generally, in statistical downscaling, no consideration is usually given to the uncertainty of different individual variables, which can result in biases in future climate simulations. The approach of quantifying uncertainty presented here has the potential to enable modelers to better formulate downscaling approaches, leading to more accurate characterization of future precipitation and its associated uncertainty. Based on the spread of multiple-model outputs, an uncertainty measure called square root of error variance has been used to quantify the contribution of different sources of uncertainty (i.e., models, scenarios, and ensembles) in monthly future climate projections in the 21st century at the 500 hPa and 850 hPa pressure levels. It has been shown that the different climate variables and levels of the atmosphere have distinct patterns in terms of their total future uncertainty and the contributions from the three sources. Scenario and model uncertainties in general contribute reasonably evenly to total uncertainty, with smaller contributions from the initial condition ensembles. ©2016. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Citation statistics:
资源类型: 期刊论文
标识符: http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/62923
Appears in Collections: 影响、适应和脆弱性 气候减缓与适应
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作者单位: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Recommended Citation:
Eghdamirad S.,Johnson F.,Woldemeskel F.,et al. Quantifying the sources of uncertainty in upper air climate variables[J]. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres,2016-01-01,121(8)