Downscaling methods and hydrological modelling approach

Abstract

<span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Times-Roman;mso-bidi-font-family:Times-Roman; mso-bidi-language:HI">For many climate change studies, scenarios derived directly from global climate model (GCM) output may not be of sufficient spatial or temporal resolution to represent changes within a region, at a specific location or the climatic inputs to model a specific process. The spatial resolution of GCMs, in particular, means that the representation of orography and land surface characteristics is greatly simplified compared to reality with consequent loss of some of the characteristics which may have important influences on regional climate. The need for detailed site or regional scenarios of climate change for impacts studies has existed for a number of years and has thus resulted in the development of a number of methodologies for deriving such information, generally from GCMs, which despite their shortcomings at finer resolution, are recognised as the best available method for determining internally-consistent scenarios of future climate. These methodologies are termed 'downscaling' and downscaling techniques have been designed to bridge the gap between the information that the climate modelling community can currently provide and that required by the impact research community.

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