The Impact of Climate Variability on
Forests, Lecture notes in Earth sciences, 74, 59-79
Evaluation of the 2xCO2 impact on European climate with a variable resolution
GCM
Michel Déqué and Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes
Meteo-France/CNRM, 42 Avenue Coriolis
31057 Toulouse Cedex, France
This paper analyses climate variability in a numerical simulation of the
impact of a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. The
sea surface temperatures (SST) come from a 240-year simulation with the
Hadley Centre coupled model. Two 10-year time slices are simulated with
a variable resolution version of the ARPEGE-IFS atmosphere general circulation
model (AGCM). This model has a maximum horizontal resolution over Europe
(60 to 100 km mesh size). The impact over Europe is analysed through the
daily minimum and maximum temperature, and precipitation. Minimum and maximum
temperatures increase whatever the season. Precipitation increases during
the colder half of the year. The impact on temporal variability is analysed
separately for three parts of the spectrum. Seasonal variability increases
for the three variables. The intraseasonal variability of temperature decreases,
whereas the intraseasonal variability of precipitation increases in winter,
with more heavy rainy days and less dry days. The impact on the interannual
variability is not significant. The extreme temperatures are warmer, but
not significant impact is found on extreme precipitation.