Regional climate modelling in CLARIS-LPB: a concerted approach towards twentyfirst century projections of regional temperature and precipitation over South America

The results of an ensemble of regional climate model (RCM) simulations over South America are presented. This is the first coordinated exercise of regional climate modelling studies over the continent, as part of the CLARIS-LPB EU FP7 project. The results of different future periods, with the main focus on (2071–2100) is shown, when forced by several global climate models, all using the A1B greenhouse gases emissions scenario. The analysis is focused on the mean climate conditions for both temperature and precipitation. The common climate change signals show an overall increase of temperature for all the seasons and regions, generally larger for the austral winter season. Future climate shows a precipitation decrease over the tropical region, and an increase over the subtropical areas. These climate change signals arise independently of the driving global model and the RCM. The internal variability of the driving global models introduces a very small level of uncertainty, compared with that due to the choice of the driving model and the RCM. Moreover, the level of uncertainty is larger for longer horizon projections for both temperature and precipitation. The uncertainty in the temperature changes is larger for the subtropical than for the tropical ones. The current analysis allows identification of the common climate change signals and their associated uncertainties for several subregions within the South American continent.