Future summer precipitation changes over CORDEX-East Asia domain downscaled by a regional ocean-atmosphere coupled model: A comparison to the stand-alone RCM

Abstract

Climate changes under the RCP8.5 scenario over the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX)-East Asia domain downscaled by a regional ocean-atmosphere coupled model Flexible Regional Ocean-Atmosphere Land System (FROALS) are compared to those downscaled by the corresponding atmosphere-only regional climate model driven by a global climate system model. Changes in the mean and interannual variability of summer rainfall were discussed for the period of 2051–2070 with respect to the present-day period of 1986–2005. Followed by an enhanced western North Pacific subtropical high and an intensified East Asian summer monsoon, an increase in total rainfall over north China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan but a decrease in total rainfall over southern China are observed in the FROALS projection. Homogeneous increases of extreme rainfall amounts were found over the CORDEX-East Asia domain. A predominant increase in the interannual variability was evident for both total rainfall and the extreme rainfall amount. The spatial patterns of the projected rainfall changes by FROALS were generally consistent with those from the driving global model at a broad scale due to similar projected circulation changes. In both models, the enhanced southerlies over east China increased the moisture divergences over southern China and enhanced the moisture advection over north China. However, the atmosphere-only regional climate model (RCM) exhibited responses to the underlying sea surface temperature (SST) warming anomalies that were too strong, which induced an anomalous cyclone over the north South China Sea, followed by increases (decreases) of total and extreme rainfall over southern China (central China). The differences of the projected changes in both rainfall and circulation between FROALS and the atmosphere-only RCM were partly affected by the differences in the projected SST changes. The results recommend the employment of a regional ocean-atmosphere coupled model in the dynamical downscaling of climate change over the CORDEX-East Asian domain.