Evaluating Summer Precipitation Using Multiple High-Resolution Regional Climate Models over South Korea

Abstract

The evaluations of climate model performances should be performed because it provides valuable information to the climate model being produced to enhance the model reliability. In comparison with regional climate model (RCM) with the standard resolution for summer precipitation over South Korea, we try to examine how the simulation performance of the high-resolution regional climate model improved. Dry biases over South Korea are still simulated in the high-resolution RCMs driven by HadGEM2-AO global climate model (GCM), however, the high-resolution RCMs driven by HadGEM2-AO GCM simulates a weaker intensity for dry bias than the standard resolution RCMs. In the evaluation of model skill, the standard resolution RCMs and the high-resolution RCMs hold a coherent relationship between mean and extreme over far-East Asia. Taylor diagram analysis shows that extremes for all RCM series have higher model performances than means due to better spatial variability. For analyses of the frequency and intensity distributions of daily summer precipitation for South Korea, moderate-heavy rain types in RCMs driven by HadGEM2-AO GCM and light-moderate rain types in RCM MME driven by MPI-ESM-LR GCM lead to dry and wet biases, respectively. The high-resolution RCM MME driven by HadGEM2-AO GCM exhibits better simulations in all precipitation types than the standard resolution RCM MME over South Korea. The variations of daily averaged for summer PR show that the added values regarding the enhancement of RCM resolution are found in analyses of time series of summer PR variation.