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17 Spatial distribution of the annual mean number of cells per year above the 10 mm threshold during the extended fall (SOND) for CNRM-AROME and COMEPHORE on the tracking domain for several time periods The original article has been corrected. 11 Spatial distribution of the annual mean number of cells per year above the 10 mm threshold during the extended fall (SOND) between 1997-2016 for CNRM-AROME and COMEPHORE on the tracking domain Graph: Fig. [Extracted from the article]

Taking advantage of a large ensemble of Convection Permitting‐Regional Climate Models on a pan‐Alpine domain and of an object‐oriented dedicated analysis, this study aims to investigate future changes in high‐impact fall Mediterranean Heavy Precipitation Events at high warming levels. We identify a robust multi‐model agreement for an increased frequency from central Italy to the northern Balkans combined with a substantial extension of the affected areas, for a dominant influence of the driving Global Climate Models for projecting changes in the frequency, and for an increase in intensity, area, volume and severity over the French Mediterranean. However, large quantitative uncertainties persist despite the use of convection‐permitting models, with no clear agreement in frequency changes over southeastern France and a large range of plausible changes in events' properties, including for the most intense events. Model diversity and international coordination are still needed to provide policy‐relevant climate information regarding precipitation extremes. Plain Language Summary: Despite growing computational resources and multiple model developments, projecting future changes in the high‐impact Mediterranean Heavy Precipitation Events remains both a numerical and scientific challenge. The present study takes advantage of the recent availability of a relatively large ensemble of high resolution Regional Climate Models (2–3 km), which represent a step change in the simulation of precipitation extremes, and of an object‐oriented approach, allowing us to track the convective precipitating systems on an hourly basis. Looking at future changes in fall Mediterranean Heavy Precipitation Events at high warming levels, we identify a robust multi‐model agreement for an increased frequency from central Italy to the northern Balkans combined with a substantial expansion of the affected areas, and an increase in intensity, area, volume and severity over the French Mediterranean. However, considerable uncertainties remain in terms of frequency over parts of the domain arising from uncertainty in changes in large scale weather patterns, and in terms of degree of intensification for the most intense events. It suggests the need for model diversity and for more coordinated high resolution climate projections with careful selection of different driving global models in order to provide policy‐relevant climate information regarding precipitation extremes. Key Points: High‐resolution ensemble and object‐oriented approach offer a unique opportunity to study changes in Mediterranean extreme precipitationRobust agreement is found for an increase in intensity, volume and severity for future French Mediterranean Heavy Precipitation EventsEven at convection‐permitting scale, considerable uncertainty remains regarding the degree of intensification of the most extreme events [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modelling the rare but high-impact Mediterranean Heavy Precipitation Events (HPEs) at climate scale remains a largely open scientific challenge. The issue is adressed here by running a 38-year-long continuous simulation of the CNRM-AROME Convection-Permitting Regional Climate Model (CP-RCM) at a 2.5 km horizontal resolution and over a large pan-Alpine domain. First, the simulation is evaluated through a basic Eulerian statistical approach via a comparison with selected high spatial and temporal resolution observational datasets. Northwestern Mediterranean fall extreme precipitation is correctly represented by CNRM-AROME at a daily scale and even better at an hourly scale, in terms of location, intensity, frequency and interannual variability, despite an underestimation of daily and hourly highest intensities above 200 mm/day and 40 mm/h, respectively. A comparison of the CP-RCM with its forcing convection-parameterised 12.5 km Regional Climate Model (RCM) demonstrates a clear added value for the CP-RCM, confirming previous studies. Secondly, an object-oriented Lagrangian approach is proposed with the implementation of a precipitating system detection and tracking algorithm, applied to the model and the reference COMEPHORE precipitation dataset for twenty fall seasons. Using French Mediterranean HPEs as objects, CNRM-AROME's ability to represent the main characteristics of fall convective systems and tracks is highlighted in terms of number, intensity, area, duration, velocity and severity. Further, the model is able to simulate long-lasting and severe extreme fall events similar to observations. However, it fails to reproduce the precipitating systems and tracks with the highest intensities (maximum intensities above 40 mm/h) well, and the model's tendency to overestimate the cell size increases with intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collaboration between the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) and the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) provides open access to an unprecedented ensemble of regional climate model (RCM) simulations, across the 14 CORDEX continental-scale domains, with global coverage. These simulations have been used as a new line of evidence to assess regional climate projections in the latest contribution of the Working Group I (WGI) to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), particularly in the regional chapters and the Atlas. Here, we present the work done in the framework of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) to -assemble a consistent worldwide CORDEX grand ensemble, aligned with the deadlines and -activities of IPCC AR6. This work addressed the uneven and heterogeneous availability of CORDEX ESGF data by supporting publication in CORDEX domains with few archived simulations and performing quality control. It also addressed the lack of comprehensive documentation by compiling information from all contributing regional models, allowing for an informed use of data. In addition to presenting the worldwide CORDEX dataset, we assess here its consistency for precipitation and temperature by comparing climate change signals in regions with overlapping CORDEX domains, obtaining overall coincident regional climate change signals. The C3S CORDEX dataset has been used for the assessment of regional climate change in the IPCC AR6 (and for the interactive Atlas) and is available through the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Important discrepancies in the large-scale summer climate change projections were recently detected between the global and regional climate models (RCM/GCM) in the EURO-CORDEX ensemble for several variables including surface temperature, total precipitation, and surface solar radiation. In this study, we use a new experimental framework inspired by the Big-Brother–Little-Brother protocol to explore the mechanisms responsible for generating large-scale discrepancies in future projections between GCM/RCM pairs over Europe in summer. Starting from past and future simulations with a perfect GCM/RCM pair (same resolution, same physics, same forcings), we then disentangle the role of potential sources of GCM/RCM inconsistency by carrying out targeted sensitivity studies. We show that by following such a perfect approach, it is possible to obtain a GCM/RCM pair without statistically significant inconsistencies in projected climate change. Such discrepancies are mainly generated by differences in aerosols representation and atmospheric physics. The role of plant physiology is limited and unlikely to be the dominant factor in the detected discrepancies. Finally, it is unlikely that the discrepancies in the EURO-CORDEX ensemble projections are a result of the upscaled added value, as we show that the effect of increased resolution is not strong enough and mostly limited to areas with complex topography. These findings raise important questions about the current practices in regional climate modelling. In the short term, implementing RCM external forcings consistent with the driving GCM can significantly improve the situation at low cost. In the long term, adopting a seamless strategy in developing the GCM/RCM models should be questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meteorological processes over islands with complex orography could be better simulated by Convection Permitting Regional Climate Models (CP-RCMs) thanks to an improved representation of the orography, land–sea contrasts, the combination of coastal and orographic effects, and explicit deep convection. This paper evaluates the ability of the CP-RCM CNRM-AROME (2.5-km horizontal resolution) to simulate relevant meteorological characteristics of the Mediterranean island of Corsica for the 2000–2018 period. These hindcast simulations are compared to their driving Regional Climate Model (RCM) CNRM-ALADIN (12.5-km horizontal resolution and parameterised convection), weather stations for precipitation and wind and gridded precipitation datasets. The main benefits are found in the representation of (i) precipitation extremes resulting mainly from mesoscale convective systems affected by steep mountains during autumn and (ii) the formation of convection through thermally induced diurnal circulations and their interaction with the orography during summer. Simulations of hourly precipitation extremes, the diurnal cycle of precipitation, the distribution of precipitation intensities, the duration of precipitation events, and sea breezes are all improved in the 2.5-km simulations with respect to the RCM, confirming an added value. However, existing differences between model simulations and observations are difficult to explain as the main biases are related to the availability and quality of observations, particularly at high elevations. Overall, better results from the 2.5-km resolution, increase our confidence in CP-RCMs to investigate future climate projections for Corsica and islands with complex terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the Mediterranean hotspots for extreme precipitation is the coastal mountainous easternAdriatic andDinaric Alps regions, which are often affected by heavy precipitation events (HPEs) that can cause severe damage. Representing these events at different time scales and projecting their future evolution using regional climate models (RCMs) remains a key modelling challenge. This study evaluates the impact of model configuration on the representation of extreme daily precipitation in an RCM at climatological (1979-2012) and event scales (HPEs). Additionally, the impact of the spectral nudging (SN) technique is analysed. We compare two CNRM-ALADIN model configurations, and perform several sensitivity tests on specific parameters within a configuration. All simulations are driven by the ERA-Interim re-analysis over the Med-CORDEX domain at 0.11◦ horizontal resolution. On all examined time scales, model configuration shows a considerable impact on the mean and extreme daily precipitation. The new physical parameterizations of moist processes show improvement at the climatological (precipitation intensity, extreme precipitation and frequency of light precipitation) and event (the occurrence, spatial pattern and structure of HPEs) scales. Extreme precipitation shows limited sensitivity to specific parameters and is highly dependent on HPE. The use of SN improves the temporal variability at climatological scales and the location and occurrence of HPEs. We conclude that extreme precipitation representation in CNRM-ALADIN is more sensitive to change in the model configuration, particularly in the physical parameterizations, than to the application of SN. This study shows that the development and advancement of physical parameterizations can improve the model representation of extreme precipitation at several time scales and can therefore be considered as a means to reduce uncertainties in future climate projections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we use run-time bias correction to correct for the Action de Recherche Petite Echelle Grande Echelle (ARPEGE) atmospheric model systematic errors on large-scale atmospheric circulation. The bias-correction terms are built using the climatological mean of the adjustment terms on tendency errors in an ARPEGE simulation relaxed towards ERA-Interim reanalyses. The bias reduction with respect to the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP)-style uncorrected control run for the general atmospheric circulation in the Southern Hemisphere is significant for mean state and daily variability. Comparisons for the Antarctic Ice Sheet with the polar-oriented regional atmospheric models MAR and RACMO2 and in situ observations also suggest substantial bias reduction for near-surface temperature and precipitation in coastal areas. Applying the method to climate projections for the late 21st century (2071–2100) leads to large differences in the projected changes of the atmospheric circulation in the southern high latitudes and of the Antarctic surface climate. The projected poleward shift and strengthening of the southern westerly winds are greatly reduced. These changes result in a significant 0.7 to 0.9 K additional warming and a 6 % to 9 % additional increase in precipitation over the grounded ice sheet. The sensitivity of precipitation increase to temperature increase (+7.7 % K -1 and +9 % K -1) found is also higher than previous estimates. The highest additional warming rates are found over East Antarctica in summer. In winter, there is a dipole of weaker warming and weaker precipitation increase over West Antarctica, contrasted by a stronger warming and a concomitant stronger precipitation increase from Victoria to Adélie Land, associated with a weaker intensification of the Amundsen Sea Low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we present the first multi-model ensemble of regional climate simulations at kilometer-scale horizontal grid spacing over a decade long period. A total of 23 simulations run with a horizontal grid spacing of ∼ 3 km, driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis, and performed by 22 European research groups are analysed. Six different regional climate models (RCMs) are represented in the ensemble. The simulations are compared against available high-resolution precipitation observations and coarse resolution (∼ 12 km) RCMs with parameterized convection. The model simulations and observations are compared with respect to mean precipitation, precipitation intensity and frequency, and heavy precipitation on daily and hourly timescales in different seasons. The results show that kilometer-scale models produce a more realistic representation of precipitation than the coarse resolution RCMs. The most significant improvements are found for heavy precipitation and precipitation frequency on both daily and hourly time scales in the summer season. In general, kilometer-scale models tend to produce more intense precipitation and reduced wet-hour frequency compared to coarse resolution models. On average, the multi-model mean shows a reduction of bias from ∼ −40% at 12 km to ∼ −3% at 3 km for heavy hourly precipitation in summer. Furthermore, the uncertainty ranges i.e. the variability between the models for wet hour frequency is reduced by half with the use of kilometer-scale models. Although differences between the model simulations at the kilometer-scale and observations still exist, it is evident that these simulations are superior to the coarse-resolution RCM simulations in the representing precipitation in the present-day climate, and thus offer a promising way forward for investigations of climate and climate change at local to regional scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the first multi-model ensemble of 10-year, "convection-permitting" kilometer-scale regional climate model (RCM) scenario simulations downscaled from selected CMIP5 GCM projections for historical and end of century time slices. The technique is to first downscale the CMIP5 GCM projections to an intermediate 12–15 km resolution grid using RCMs, and then use these fields to downscale further to the kilometer scale. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of the representation of the precipitation characteristics and their projected changes over the greater Alpine domain within a Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment Flagship Pilot Study and the European Climate Prediction system project, tasked with investigating convective processes at the kilometer scale. An ensemble of 12 simulations performed by different research groups around Europe is analyzed. The simulations are evaluated through comparison with high resolution observations while the complementary ensemble of 12 km resolution driving models is used as a benchmark to evaluate the added value of the convection-permitting ensemble. The results show that the kilometer-scale ensemble is able to improve the representation of fine scale details of mean daily, wet-day/hour frequency, wet-day/hour intensity and heavy precipitation on a seasonal scale, reducing uncertainty over some regions. It also improves the representation of the summer diurnal cycle, showing more realistic onset and peak of convection. The kilometer-scale ensemble refines and enhances the projected patterns of change from the coarser resolution simulations and even modifies the sign of the precipitation intensity change and heavy precipitation over some regions. The convection permitting simulations also show larger changes for all indices over the diurnal cycle, also suggesting a change in the duration of convection over some regions. A larger positive change of frequency of heavy to severe precipitation is found. The results are encouraging towards the use of convection-permitting model ensembles to produce robust assessments of the local impacts of future climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study describes the atmospheric component of the sixth‐generation climate models of the Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM), namely, ARPEGE‐Climat 6.3. It builds up on more than a decade of model development and tuning efforts, which led to major updates of its moist physics. The vertical resolution has also been significantly increased, both in the boundary layer and in the stratosphere. ARPEGE‐Climat 6.3 is now coupled to the new version (8.0) of the SURFace EXternalisée (SURFEX) surface model, in which several new features (e.g., floodplains, aquifers, and snow processes) improve the water cycle realism. The model calibration is discussed in depth. An amip‐type experiment, in which the sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations are prescribed, and following the CMIP6 protocol, is extensively evaluated, in terms of climate mean state and variability. ARPEGE‐Climat 6.3 is shown to improve over its previous version (5.1) by many climate features. Major improvements include the top‐of‐atmosphere and surface energy budgets in their various components (shortwave and longwave, total and clear sky), cloud cover, near‐surface temperature, precipitation climatology and daily‐mean distribution, and water discharges at the outlet of major rivers. In contrast, clouds over subtropical stratocumulus decks, several dynamical variables (sea level pressure, 500‐hPa geopotential height), are still significantly biased. The tropical intraseasonal variability and diurnal cycle of precipitation, though improved, remained area of concerns for further model improvement. New biases also emerge, such as a lack of precipitation over several tropical continental areas. Within the CMIP6 context, ARPEGE‐Climat 6.3 is the atmospheric component of CNRM‐CM6‐1 and CNRM‐ESM2‐1. Plain Language Summary: Since the early 1990s, the Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM) has been developing a global atmosphere model for climate applications. The present work presents its latest version, ARPEGE‐Climat 6.3, as prepared for the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). It builds up on more than a decade of model development and tuning efforts. A CMIP6 amip‐type numerical experiment, in which the sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations are prescribed, is evaluated, in terms of climate mean state and variability. ARPEGE‐Climat 6.3 is shown to have better or similar skills compared to its previous version and to rank rather high among CMIP5 state‐of‐the‐art models by many mean‐state metrics. Major improvements include the top‐of‐atmosphere and surface energy budgets, cloud cover, near‐surface temperature, precipitation climatology and daily‐mean distribution, and water discharges at the outlet of major rivers. In contrast, clouds over the eastern part of ocean basins, and a few dynamical variables, such as sea level pressure, are still significantly biased. New biases also emerge, such as a lack of precipitation over several tropical continental areas. The remaining and new biases call for further understanding, especially whether they arise from calibration issues or model structural limits. Key Points: Version 6.3 of the ARPEGE‐Climat atmospheric model includes an increased vertical resolution and a major update of the moist physicsImprovements include radiation, cloud and precipitation climatology, daily rainfall distribution, and water discharge at major river outletsWeaknesses still include biases in low clouds and some dynamical fields, while the West African monsoon is a new model deficiency [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South-East France is a region often affected by heavy precipitating events the characteristics of which are likely to be significantly impacted in the future climate. In this study, cnrm-arome, a Convection-Permitting Regional Climate Model with a 2.5 km horizontal resolution is compared to its forcing model, the Regional Climate Model aladin-climate at a horizontal resolution of 12.5 km, self-driven by the era-interim reanalysis. An hourly observation dataset with a resolution of 1 km, comephore, is used in order to assess simulated surface precipitation from a seasonal to hourly scale. The representation of the spatial pattern of fall precipitation climatology is improved by cnrm-arome. It also shows a clear added value with respect to aladin-climate through the improvement of the localization and intensity of extreme rainfall on a daily and hourly time scale on both fine and coarse spatial scales (2.5, 12.5 and 50 km). cnrm-arome in particular is able to simulate intense rainfall on lowlands and makes sub-daily rainfall events more intense than aladin-climate. cnrm-arome still underestimates very extreme precipitation from above 30 mm/h or 230 mm/day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to increase in snowfall, the Antarctic Ice Sheet surface mass balance is expected to increase by the end of the current century. Assuming no associated response of ice dynamics, this will be a negative contribution to sea-level rise. However, the assessment of these changes using dynamical downscaling of coupled climate model projections still bears considerable uncertainties due to poorly represented high-southern-latitude atmospheric circulation and sea surface conditions (SSCs), that is sea surface temperature and sea ice concentration. This study evaluates the Antarctic surface climate simulated using a global high-resolution atmospheric model and assesses the effects on the simulated Antarctic surface climate of two different SSC data sets obtained from two coupled climate model projections. The two coupled models from which SSCs are taken, MIROC-ESM and NorESM1-M, simulate future Antarctic sea ice trends at the opposite ends of the CMIP5 RCP8.5 projection range. The atmospheric model ARPEGE is used with a stretched grid configuration in order to achieve an average horizontal resolution of 35 km over Antarctica. Over the 1981–2010 period, ARPEGE is driven by the SSCs from MIROC-ESM, NorESM1-M and CMIP5 historical runs and by observed SSCs. These three simulations are evaluated against the ERA-Interim reanalyses for atmospheric general circulation as well as the MAR regional climate model and in situ observations for surface climate. For the late 21st century, SSCs from the same coupled climate models forced by the RCP8.5 emission scenario are used both directly and bias-corrected with an anomaly method which consists in adding the future climate anomaly from coupled model projections to the observed SSCs with taking into account the quantile distribution of these anomalies. We evaluate the effects of driving the atmospheric model by the bias-corrected instead of the original SSCs. For the simulation using SSCs from NorESM1-M, no significantly different climate change signals over Antarctica as a whole are found when bias-corrected SSCs are used. For the simulation driven by MIROC-ESM SSCs, a significant additional increase in precipitation and in winter temperatures for the Antarctic Ice Sheet is obtained when using bias-corrected SSCs. For the range of Antarctic warming found (+3 to +4 K), we confirm that snowfall increase will largely outweigh increases in melt and rainfall. Using the end members of sea ice trends from the CMIP5 RCP8.5 projections, the difference in warming obtained (∼ 1 K) is much smaller than the spread of the CMIP5 Antarctic warming projections. This confirms that the errors in representing the Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation in climate models are also determinant for the diversity of their projected late 21st century Antarctic climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, significant efforts have been made to upgrade physical processes in the ISBA-CTRIP land surface system for use in fully coupled climate studies using the new CNRM-CM6 climate model or in stand-alone mode for global hydrological applications. Here we provide a thorough description of the new and improved processes implemented between the CMIP5 and CMIP6 versions of the model and evaluate the hydrology and thermal behavior of the model at the global scale. The soil scheme explicitly solves the one-dimensional Fourier and Darcy laws throughout the soil, accounting for the dependency of hydraulic and thermal soil properties on soil organic carbon content. The snowpack is represented using a multilayer detailed internal-process snow scheme. A two-way dynamic flood scheme is added in which floodplains interact with the soil hydrology through reinfiltration of floodwater and with the overlying atmosphere through surface free-water evaporation. Finally, groundwater processes are represented via a two-dimensional diffusive unconfined aquifer scheme allowing upward capillarity rises into the superficial soil. This new system has been evaluated in off-line mode using two different atmospheric forcings and against a large set of satellite estimates and in situ observations. While this study is not without weaknesses, its results show a real advance in modeling the physical aspects of the land surface with the new ISBA-CTRIP version compared to the previous system. This increases our confidence that the model is able to represent the land surface physical processes accurately across the globe and in turn contribute to several important scientific and societal issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the principles of the new coupling interface based on the SURFEX multi-surface model and the OASIS3-MCT coupler. As SURFEX can be plugged into several atmospheric models, it can be used in a wide range of applications, from global and regional coupled climate systems to high-resolution numerical weather prediction systems or very fine-scale models dedicated to process studies. The objective of this development is to build and share a common structure for the atmosphere–surface coupling of all these applications, involving on the one hand atmospheric models and on the other hand ocean, ice, hydrology, and wave models. The numerical and physical principles of SURFEX interface between the different component models are described, and the different coupled systems in which the SURFEX OASIS3-MCT-based coupling interface is already implemented are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the principles of the new coupling interface based on the SURFEX multi-surface model and the OASIS3-MCT coupler. As SURFEX can be plugged into several atmospheric models, it can be used in a wide range of applications, from global and regional coupled climate systems to high-resolution Numerical Weather Prediction systems or very fine scale systems dedicated to process studies. The objective of this development is to build and share a common structure for all these applications for the atmosphere-surface coupling, between atmospheric models and ocean, ice, hydrology, and wave models. The numerical and physical principles of the SURFEX interface between the different component models are described, and the different coupled systems into which the SURFEX OASIS3-MCT-based coupling interface is already applied are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, an ensemble of four multi-year climate simulations is performed with the regional climate model ALADIN to evaluate its ability to simulate the climate over North America in the CORDEX framework. The simulations differ in their driving fields (ERA-40 or ERA-Interim) and the nudging technique (with or without large-scale nudging). The validation of the simulated 2-m temperature and precipitation with observationally-based gridded data sets shows that ALADIN performs similarly to other regional climate models that are commonly used over North America. Large-scale nudging improves the temporal correlation of the atmospheric circulation between ALADIN and its driving field, and also reduces the warm and dry summer biases in central North America. The differences between the simulations driven with different reanalyses are small and are likely related to the regional climate model's induced internal variability. In general, the impact of different driving fields on ALADIN is smaller than that of large-scale nudging. The analysis of the multi-year simulations over the prairie and the east taiga indicates that the ALADIN 2-m temperature and precipitation interannual variability is similar or larger than that observed. Finally, a comparison of the simulations with observations for the summer 1993 shows that ALADIN underestimates the flood in central North America mainly due to its systematic dry bias in this region. Overall, the results indicate that ALADIN can produce a valuable contribution to CORDEX over North America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unfortunately, the article "Extreme rainfall in Mediterranean France during the fall: added value of the CNRM‑AROME Convection‑Permitting Regional Climate Model", written by Quentin Fumière was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 24 July 2019 without open access with incorrect copyright holder as "© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Croatian Adriatic coast is often affected by extreme precipitation that leads to flash-floods with severe damage, both human and material. The added value of high-resolution regional climate model (RCM) simulations of mean and extreme precipitation has already been proven, but RCMs' skill over complex terrain, such as coastal mountains in Croatia, still poses some challenges and open questions. We evaluate the daily precipitation simulations of high-resolution (0.11°) RCM ALADIN-Climate versions 5.2 (ALD5) and 6.3 (ALD6) driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis over the Med-CORDEX domain. The spectral nudging technique (SN) was applied on both model versions (AD5SN, ALD6SN). Reference datasets used are precipitation analysis system MESCAN, available on 5.5 km resolution every 6 h, and 24 h accumulated precipitation data from the Croatian raingauge network. To assess the agreement between model and reference we perform statistical analysis in terms of multi year spatial bias for the mean annual and seasonal precipitation, the number of wet days, the 99.9th quantile, and the quantile-quantile plots for the period 1979-2012. ALD6SN outperforms the previous versions by diminishing the drizzling effect, with notably less wet days than ALD5 and ALD5SN, and with significantly improved lower precipitation quantiles. All model versions show an underestimation of higher-order quantiles. The spectral nudging in ALD5SN causes an overestimation of the lower quantiles, with minimum difference in higher quantiles compared to ALD5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mediterranean region of France are regularly affected by extreme precipitation that often lead to devastating flash-floods, often associated with both human and material damages. The evolution of such events in terms of occurrence and severity with climate change remains an open question.The purpose of the current study is to characterize the future evolution of these heavy precipitating events in terms of occurrence and intensity. A historical simulation (1976 – 2005) will be compare to a future simulation (2071 – 2100) for the RCP8,5 scenario. The CNRM-CM5 global climate is used as driver model. The study also compare climate change simulations from a convection parametrized convection model (ALADIN-Climate) and a convection permitting reginal climate model (AROME-Climate). These simulations were carried out on the domain defined by the CORDEX Flagship Pilot Study "Convective phenomena at high resolution over Europe and the Mediterranean". It is centered on the Alps. This domain allows a good representation of the large scale circulation over the Mediterranean sea that causes convective phenomena in the Southeastern France. The study of changes in spatial distribution and cumulative precipitation will be based on daily and hourly averages and quantiles of precipitation.I would like to share my knowledge on convection permitting regional climate model with interested people. This workshop would be a great opportunity and I hope, I will have the opportunity to exchange with people from this community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]