A new bias-corrected EURO-CORDEX dataset for Hungary based on the HuClim database

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face today. Beside higher temperature values, an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are likely to occur in the future, which is also highlighted by the latest IPCC report. Global and regional climate models (GCMs and RCMs, respectively) have become indispensable tools for climate research, but these model simulations are encumbered with uncertainty from a variety of sources. These uncertainties can be quantified and reduced by evaluating several RCMs together, as members of an ensemble, or by applying bias-adjusted results. In our research we focus on the signal of changes in climate extremes related to temperature and precipitation over Hungary based on raw and bias-adjusted data. An ongoing international initiative called CORDEX (COordinated Regional Downscaling Experiments) provides a large number of RCM simulations for 14 domains of the world. EURO-CORDEX is a sub-programme of CORDEX, covering the European domain and providing regional climate projections at a horizontal resolutions of 0.11° (about 12.5 km) and 0.44° (about 50 km). In our study 5 high-resolution RCMs (CCLM, HIRHAM, RACMO, RCA, REMO) are investigated from the framework of EURO-CORDEX. The simulations follow the radiative forcing scenario RCP8.5 and cover the period 1976–2099. The most important step of the research is the bias-correction of the raw RCM simulations by using the most accurate, measurement-based, high-resolution, homogenized and quality controlled HUCLIM dataset currently available for Hungary, which has not been used yet to produce an available bias-corrected database. The internationally accepted percentile-based quantile mapping method was chosen for the bias-adjustment and was performed on a monthly basis. As part of the study, the evaluation of the new database is presented here for two variables (daily precipitation and daily mean temperature).