Projections of precipitation in the Northern foothills of the Tatra Mountains

Abstract

Floods are usually related to extreme and/or long-lasting intense precipitation events. In warmer climate, future precipitation extremes could be higher than nowadays. Assessment of these future changes and climate adaptation to future flood risk are very important issues. In this study, four regional climate models and seven global climate models for two climate scenarios A1B and A2 were used to get better description of the range of changes in annual as well as extreme precipitation events. With help of the delta-change method, projections were made based on responses from regional and global climate models, for 11 precipitation stations in the Tatra Mountains in Poland, for which observation data for 1961–1990 were available. Analyses were made of various indices, such as annual totals, maximum 24 h, 5-day; 10-day, monthly maximum sum of precipitation and also numbers of days with intense precipitation equal or above the thresholds of 30 and 50 mm. It was found that all RCM and GCM models under examination project an increase in mean annual precipitation totals as well as in heavy precipitation in two future time windows considered (2061–2090 and 2080–2100).