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AGU: Water Resources Research

 

Keywords

  • precipitation
  • China
  • weather pattern
  • regression
  • analogue method
  • statistical downscaling

Index Terms

  • Hydrology: Extreme events
  • Hydrology: Modeling
  • Hydrology: Precipitation
  • Atmospheric Processes: General circulation
Abstract
Cited By (4)
 

Abstract

Daily precipitation-downscaling techniques in three Chinese regions

Fredrik Wetterhall

Air and Water Science, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

András Bárdossy

Institut fur Wasserbau, Stuttgart University, Stuttgart, Germany

Deliang Chen

Regional Climate Group, Earth Sciences Centre, Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden

Sven Halldin

Air and Water Science, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Chong-Yu Xu

Air and Water Science, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Four methods of statistical downscaling of daily precipitation were evaluated on three catchments located in southern, eastern, and central China. The evaluation focused on seasonal variation of statistical properties of precipitation and indices describing the precipitation regime, e.g., maximum length of dry spell and maximum 5-day precipitation, as well as interannual and intra-annual variations of precipitation. The predictors used in this study were mean sea level pressure, geopotential heights at 1000, 850, 700, and 500 hPa, and specific humidity as well as horizontal winds at 850, 700, and 500 hPa levels from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis with 2.5° × 2.5° resolution for 1961–2000. The predictand was daily precipitation from 13 stations. Two analogue methods, one using principal components analysis (PCA) and the other Teweles-Wobus scores (TWS), a multiregression technique with a weather generator producing precipitation (SDSM) and a fuzzy-rule-based weather-pattern-classification method (MOFRBC), were used. Temporal and spatial properties of the predictors were carefully evaluated to derive the optimum setting for each method, and MOFRBC and SDSM were implemented in two modes, with and without humidity as predictor. The results showed that (1) precipitation was most successfully downscaled in the southern and eastern catchments located close to the coast, (2) winter properties were generally better downscaled, (3) MOFRBC and SDSM performed overall better than the analogue methods, (4) the modeled interannual variation in precipitation was improved when humidity was added to the predictor set, and (5), the annual precipitation cycle was well captured with all methods.

Received 13 September 2005; accepted 27 July 2006; published 28 November 2006.

Citation: Wetterhall, F., A. Bárdossy, D. Chen, S. Halldin, and C.-Y. Xu (2006), Daily precipitation-downscaling techniques in three Chinese regions, Water Resour. Res., 42, W11423, doi:10.1029/2005WR004573.

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