Regional climate change in the Northern Adriatic

An analysis of the climate change signal for seasonal temperature and precipitation over the Northern Adriatic region is presented here. We collected 43 regional climate simulations covering the target area, including experiments produced in the context of the PRUDENCE and ENSEMBLES projects, and additional experiments produced by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. The ability of the models to simulate the present climate in terms of mean and interannual variability is discussed and the insufficient reproduction of some features, such as the intensity of summer precipitation, are shown. The contribution to the variance associated with the intermodel spread is computed. The changes of mean and interannual variability are analyzed for the period 2071–2100 in the PRUDENCE runs (A2 scenario) and the periods 2021–2050 and 2071–2100 (A1B scenario) for the other runs. Ensemble results show a major warming at the end of the 21st century. Warming will be larger in the A2 scenario (about 5.5 K in summer and 4 K in winter) than in the A1B. Precipitation is projected to increase in winter and decrease in summer by 20% (+0.5 mm/day and −1 mm/day over the Alps, respectively). The climate change signal for scenario A1B in the period 2021–2050 is significant for temperature, but not yet for precipitation. In summer, interannual variability is projected to increase for temperature and for precipitation. Winter interannual variability change is different among scenarios. A reduction of precipitation is found for A2, while for A1B a reduction of temperature interannual variability is observed.