FUTURE CHANGE OF PRECIPITATION EXTREMES OVER THE PEARL RIVER BASIN FROM REGIONAL CLIMATE MODELS

Based on RegCM4, a climate model system, we simulated the distribution of the present climate (1961-1990) and the future climate (2010-2099), under emission scenarios of RCPs over the whole Pearl River Basin. From the climate parameters, a set of mean precipitation, wet day frequency, and mean wet day intensity and several precipitation percentiles are used to assess the expected changes in daily precipitation characteristics for the 21st century. Meanwhile the return values of precipitation intensity with an average return of 5, 10, 20, and 50 years are also used to assess the expected changes in precipitation extremes events in this study. The structure of the change across the precipitation distribution is very coherent between RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The annual, spring and winter average precipitation decreases while the summer and autumn average precipitation increases. The basic diagnostics of precipitation show that the frequency of precipitation is projected to decrease but the intensity is projected to increase. The wet day percentiles (q90 and q95) also increase, indicating that precipitation extremes intensity will increase in the future. Meanwhile, the 5-year return value tends to increase by 30%-45% in the basins of Liujiang River, Red Water River, Guihe River and Pearl River Delta region, where the 5-year return value of future climate corresponds to the 8- to 10-year return value of the present climate, and the 50-year return value corresponds to the 100-year return value of the present climate over the Pearl River Delta region in the 2080s under RCP8.5, which indicates that the warming environment will give rise to changes in the intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation events.