Abstract

This study presented evaluation procedure for selecting appropriate GCMs and downscaling method by focusing on the climate extreme indices suitable for climate change adaptation. The procedure includes six stages of processes as follows: 1) exclusion of unsuitable GCM through raw GCM analysis before bias correction; 2) calculation of the climate extreme indices and selection of downscaling method by evaluating reproducibility for the past and distortion rate for the future period; 3) selection of downscaling method based on evaluation of reproducibility of spatial correlation among weather stations; and 4) MME calculation using weight factors and evaluation of uncertainty range depending on number of GCMs. The presented procedure was applied to 60 weather stations where there are observed data for the past 30 year period on Korea Peninsula. First, 22 GCMs were selected through the evaluation of the spatio-temporal reproducibility of 29 GCMs. Between Simple Quantile Mapping (SQM) and Spatial Disaggregation Quantile Delta Mapping (SDQDM) methods, SQM was selected based on the reproducibility of 27 climate extreme indices for the past and reproducibility evaluation of spatial correlation in precipitation and temperature. Total precipitation (prcptot) and annual 1-day maximum precipitation (rx1day), which is respectively related to water supply and floods, were selected and MME-based future projections were estimated for near-future (2010-2039), the mid-future (2040-2069), and the far-future (2070-2099) based on the weight factors by GCM. The prcptot and rx1day increased as time goes farther from the near-future to the far-future and RCP 8.5 showed a higher rate of increase in both indices compared to RCP 4.5 scenario. It was also found that use of 20 GCM out of 22 explains 80% of the overall variation in all combinations of RCP scenarios and future periods. The result of this study is an example of an application in Korea Peninsula and APCC Integrated Modeling Solution (AIMS) can be utilized in various areas and fields if users want to apply the proposed procedure directly to a target area.

Keywords

• Downscaling;
• Climate Change Scenario;
• AIMS;
• SDQDM;
• SQM