Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute

About: Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute is a government organization based out in Norrköping, Sweden. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Climate model & Climate change. The organization has 513 authors who have published 1726 publications receiving 97079 citations. The organization is also known as: SMHI & Sveriges Meteorologiska och Hydrologiska Institut.

The ERA-Interim reanalysis: configuration and performance of the data assimilation system

Abstract: ERA-Interim is the latest global atmospheric reanalysis produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The ERA-Interim project was conducted in part to prepare for a new atmospheric reanalysis to replace ERA-40, which will extend back to the early part of the twentieth century. This article describes the forecast model, data assimilation method, and input datasets used to produce ERA-Interim, and discusses the performance of the system. Special emphasis is placed on various difficulties encountered in the production of ERA-40, including the representation of the hydrological cycle, the quality of the stratospheric circulation, and the consistency in time of the reanalysed fields. We provide evidence for substantial improvements in each of these aspects. We also identify areas where further work is needed and describe opportunities and objectives for future reanalysis projects at ECMWF. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society

Evaluation of climate models

Abstract: Climate models have continued to be developed and improved since the AR4, and many models have been extended into Earth System models by including the representation of biogeochemical cycles important to climate change. These models allow for policy-relevant calculations such as the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions compatible with a specified climate stabilization target. In addition, the range of climate variables and processes that have been evaluated has greatly expanded, and differences between models and observations are increasingly quantified using ‘performance metrics’. In this chapter, model evaluation covers simulation of the mean climate, of historical climate change, of variability on multiple time scales and of regional modes of variability. This evaluation is based on recent internationally coordinated model experiments, including simulations of historic and paleo climate, specialized experiments designed to provide insight into key climate processes and feedbacks and regional climate downscaling. Figure 9.44 provides an overview of model capabilities as assessed in this chapter, including improvements, or lack thereof, relative to models assessed in the AR4. The chapter concludes with an assessment of recent work connecting model performance to the detection and attribution of climate change as well as to future projections.

EURO-CORDEX : new high-resolution climate change projections for European impact research

Abstract: A new high-resolution regional climate change ensemble has been established for Europe within the World Climate Research Program Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (EURO-CORDEX) initiative. The first set of simulations with a horizontal resolution of 12.5 km was completed for the new emission scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 with more simulations expected to follow. The aim of this paper is to present this data set to the different communities active in regional climate modelling, impact assessment and adaptation. The EURO-CORDEX ensemble results have been compared to the SRES A1B simulation results achieved within the ENSEMBLES project. The large-scale patterns of changes in mean temperature and precipitation are similar in all three scenarios, but they differ in regional details, which can partly be related to the higher resolution in EURO-CORDEX. The results strengthen those obtained in ENSEMBLES, but need further investigations. The analysis of impact indices shows that for RCP8.5, there is a substantially larger change projected for temperature-based indices than for RCP4.5. The difference is less pronounced for precipitation-based indices. Two effects of the increased resolution can be regarded as an added value of regional climate simulations. Regional climate model simulations provide higher daily precipitation intensities, which are completely missing in the global climate model simulations, and they provide a significantly different climate change of daily precipitation intensities resulting in a smoother shift from weak to moderate and high intensities.

Daily dataset of 20th‐century surface air temperature and precipitation series for the European Climate Assessment

Abstract: We present a dataset of daily resolution climatic time series that has been compiled for the European Climate Assessment (ECA). As of December 2001, this ECA dataset comprises 199 series of minimum, maximum and/or daily mean temperature and 195 series of daily precipitation amount observed at meteorological stations in Europe and the Middle East. Almost all series cover the standard normal period 1961–90, and about 50% extends back to at least 1925. Part of the dataset (90%) is made available for climate research on CDROM and through the Internet (at http://www.knmi.nl/samenw/eca). A comparison of the ECA dataset with existing gridded datasets, having monthly resolution, shows that correlation coefficients between ECA stations and nearest land grid boxes between 1946 and 1999 are higher than 0.8 for 93% of the temperature series and for 51% of the precipitation series. The overall trends in the ECA dataset are of comparable magnitude to those in the gridded datasets. The potential of the ECA dataset for climate studies is demonstrated in two examples. In the first example, it is shown that the winter (October–March) warming in Europe in the 1976–99 period is accompanied by a positive trend in the number of warm-spell days at most stations, but not by a negative trend in the number of cold-spell days. Instead, the number of cold-spell days increases over Europe. In the second example, it is shown for winter precipitation between 1946 and 1999 that positive trends in the mean amount per wet day prevail in areas that are getting drier and wetter. Because of its daily resolution, the ECA dataset enables a variety of empirical climate studies, including detailed analyses of changes in the occurrence of extremes in relation to changes in mean temperature and total precipitation. Copyright  2002 Royal Meteorological Society.