Soil control on runoff response to climate change in regional climate model simulations

Abstract

Simulations with seven regional climate models driven by a common control climate simulation of a GCM carried out for Europe in the context of the so-called PRUDENCE project were analysed with respect to land surface hydrology in the Rhine basin. In particular, the annual cycle of the terrestrial water storage reservoir was compared to analyses based on ERA40 atmospheric convergence and observed Rhine discharge data. This analysis revealed that most models underestimate the size of the water storage and consequently overestimated the response of runoff to anomalies in net convergence. The partitioning of these anomalies over runoff and storage were indicative for the response of the simulated runoff to a change in the greenhouse gas concentration corresponding to the A2 SRES scenario. In particular the depth of the annual cycle of runoff is affected largely by the terrestrial storage reservoir. Larger storage capacity leads to smaller changes in both wintertime and summertime monthly mean runoff. The sustained summertime evaporation resulting from larger storage reservoirs may have a noticeable impact on the summertime surface temperature projections.