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WRF high resolution dynamical downscaling of ERA-Interim for Portugal

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Abstract

This study proposes a dynamically downscaled climatology of Portugal, produced by a high resolution (9 km) WRF simulation, forced by 20 years of ERA-Interim reanalysis (1989–2008), nested in an intermediate domain with 27 km of resolution. The Portuguese mainland is characterized by large precipitation gradients, with observed mean annual precipitation ranging from about 400 to over 2,200 mm, with a very wet northwest and rather dry southeast, largely explained by orographic processes. Model results are compared with all available stations with continuous records, comprising daily information in 32 stations for temperature and 308 for precipitation, through the computation of mean climatologies, standard statistical errors on daily to seasonally timescales, and distributions of extreme events. Results show that WRF at 9 km outperforms ERA-Interim in all analyzed variables, with good results in the representation of the annual cycles in each region. The biases of minimum and maximum temperature are reduced, with improvement of the description of temperature variability at the extreme range of its distribution. The largest gain of the high resolution simulations is visible in the rainiest regions of Portugal, where orographic enhancement is crucial. These improvements are striking in the high ranking percentiles in all seasons, describing extreme precipitation events. WRF results at 9 km compare favorably with published results supporting its use as a high-resolution regional climate model. This higher resolution allows a better representation of extreme events that are of major importance to develop mitigation/adaptation strategies by policy makers and downstream users of regional climate models in applications such as flash floods or heat waves.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the two anonymous reviewers of this manuscript for their comments and suggestions. This work was funded by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) under project REWRITE- PTDC/CLI/73814/2006, and PEST-OE/CTE/LA0019/2011.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Dom Luiz, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Pedro M. M. Soares, Rita M. Cardoso, Pedro M. A. Miranda & Joana de Medeiros

  2. Instituto de Meteorologia, Lisbon, Portugal

    Margarida Belo-Pereira & Fátima Espirito-Santo

  3. Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande, Ed. C8 (3.26), 1749-016, Lisbon, Portugal

    Pedro M. M. Soares

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  1. Pedro M. M. Soares
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Correspondence to Pedro M. M. Soares.

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Soares, P.M.M., Cardoso, R.M., Miranda, P.M.A. et al. WRF high resolution dynamical downscaling of ERA-Interim for Portugal. Clim Dyn 39, 2497–2522 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1315-2

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