Abstract
It is very likely that the intensity of rainfall and the temperature over land is going to increase by the end of the century. Thus, an important goal foremost for urban areas is an estimation of climate change trends.
The main objective of this study is to estimate changes in climate characteristics for precipitation (P) and temperature (T) in Prague region. The study will use regional climate model daily data from the portal of World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX).
For precipitation commonly used models are selected (ICHECEC-EARTH, MPI-M-MPI-ESM-LR-r2i1p1 and MPI-M-MPI-ESM-LR-r2i1p1) for three scenarios (RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5 and RCP 6.5). For temperature three models are used (ICHEC-EC-EARTH, MPI-M-MPI-ESM-LR-r1i1p1 and IPSL-IPSL-CM5A-MR) for two scenarios RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5.
Historical and two future periods are considered. Eight indices were chosen to estimate climate change in Prague: (1) yearly minimum, mean, and maximum, mean precipitation rate, (2) number of extreme days exceeding a threshold of 20 mm/day, (3) Consecutive dry days and the number of these periods, (4) Consecutive wet days and the number of these periods , (5) Simple daily intensity, (6) number of frost days with minimal air temperature (T) 20°C.
The results show, for the annual maximum precipitation, an increase by 100 mm/year occurs during the period 2081-2100 by the RCP8.5 scenario. For extreme events an increase in the minimum, mean and maximum temperatures by more than 50 % occurs by the scenario 8.5 in comparison with the two other scenarios at the end of century.
Analysis of the wet/dry indices show a slight increase for the future periods or the two scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. The study concludes, there is a decrease of more than 50 % in the cold days (frost and ice), the number of tropical nights increase ten times more and an increase by about 75 days of very heavy rainy days by RCP 8.5 scenario during the period of 2081-2100.