Local decadal prediction according to statistical/dynamical approaches.

Dynamical climate models present an initialization problem due to the poor availability of deep oceanic data, which is required for the model assimilation process. In this sense, teleconnection indices, defined from spatial and temporal patterns of climatic variables, are conceived as useful tools to complement them. In this work, the near-term climate predictability of 35 temperature and 36 precipitation time series of three cities (Barcelona, Bristol and Lisbon) was analysed using two approaches: (a) a statistical-dynamical combination of self-predictable teleconnection indices and long-term climate projections on a local scale and (b) dynamical model outputs obtained from drift-corrected decadal experiments.

Impact of climate change on drought in Aragon (NE Spain).

Droughts are one of the extreme climatic phenomena with the greatest and most persistent impact on health, economic activities and ecosystems and are poorly understood due to their complexity. The exacerbation of global warming throughout this century probably will cause an increase in droughts, so accurate studies of future projections at a local level, not done so far, are essential. Climate change scenarios of drought indexes for the region of Aragon (Spain) based on nine Earth System Models (ESMs) and two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) corresponding to the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) have been generated for the first time.

Climate change scenarios for temperature and precipitation in Aragón (Spain).

By applying a two-step statistical downscaling technique to four climate models under different future emission scenarios, we produced future projections of the daily precipitation and the maximum and minimum temperatures over the Spanish region of Aragón. The reliability of the downscaling technique was assessed by a verification process involving the comparison of the downscaled reanalysis data with the observed data--the results were very good for the temperature and acceptable for the precipitation. To determine the ability of the climate models to simulate the real climate, their simulations of the past (the 20C3M output) were downscaled and then compared with the observed climate.