A fine resolution regional climate change experiment for the Eastern Mediterranean: Analysis of the present climate simulations

In the frame of this work, "current" climate (1961-1990) simulations using the regional climate change model PRECIS were performed 25 km grid spacing. The 30-year simulations are compared with the available surface station data, focusing on near-surface air temperature and precipitation. The analysis has shown that the model overestimates the diurnal temperature variation during the cold period of the year (DJF) in the majority of the stations. During the warm period (JJA) the simulated daily temperature range is shifted towards warmer values, while during the transient periods of the year (MAM and SON) it is shifted towards cooler values. Both usual goodness of fit indices and tests and some more advanced methods for comparing statistical distributions were used. The latter indicate that both a scale and location adjustment needs to be applied on the model results distribution in order to sufficiently describe the observed temperature distribution. Regarding rainfall, it was found that the model underestimates the seasonal rainfall during DJF and SON, mainly over the stations of the Mediterranean coast that receive most of the yearly rainfall during autumn and, mainly, winter. An interesting feature is that, during JJA, the model was able to reproduce quite efficiently the seasonal rainfall in the central Balkans that receive as much rain during summer as during winter. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.