EGU23-14134
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-14134
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Impact of orography on sub-daily precipitation upper tail from convection-permitting climate model simulations: a multi-model ensemble perspective 

Nathalia Correa Sánchez1, Eleonora Dallan1, Francesco Marra2,3, Giorgia Fosser4, and Marco Borga1
Nathalia Correa Sánchez et al.
  • 1Department of Land Environment Agriculture and Forestry, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
  • 2Department of Geosciences, University of Padova, Italy
  • 3National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (CNR-ISAC), Bologna, Italy
  • 4University School for Advanced Studies, IUSS Pavia, Pavia, Italy

Understanding the impact of orography on the probability distribution of extreme precipitation at short (i.e., sub-daily) temporal scales, as well as on extreme-rainfall causative processes, is critical for managing risk from rainfall-triggered natural hazards in mountainous regions. High-resolution convection-permitting models (CPMs) are crucial for this type of analysis since they better represent convective processes key to short-duration extremes.

Here, we assess the ability of multi-model CPM ensemble CORDEX-FPS to represent the upper tail of sub-daily precipitation in a complex-orography region in the Eastern Italian Alps. In this area, different orographic impacts on sub-daily precipitation upper tail were reported at different event durations, and significant temporal trends in precipitation intensity were reported during the last few decades, making it a challenging and interesting test case for CPM simulations. An ensemble of six CPMs with a horizontal grid spacing of 2.2 km, driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis, are analysed and evaluated against 180 rain gauges. Since CPM simulations are too short (10 years) for analysing extremes using conventional methods, we use a non-asymptotic statistical approach (Simplified Metastatistical Extreme Value, SMEV), which was proven to provide reliable results even using short time records. We explore how the model spread vary with elevation and the ability of the multi-model mean to reproduce the distribution parameters and the extreme quantiles up to 100-year return period at different elevations.

How to cite: Correa Sánchez, N., Dallan, E., Marra, F., Fosser, G., and Borga, M.: Impact of orography on sub-daily precipitation upper tail from convection-permitting climate model simulations: a multi-model ensemble perspective , EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-14134, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-14134, 2023.