An exploration of regional climate change scenarios for Scotland

Abstract

Abstract Based on a high resolution regional climate model (RCM) experiment, a climate change scenario for Scotland for the end of this century is constructed with the aim of exploring the added value of utilising a regional rather than a global model (GCM) for climate change scenario construction. Spatial variations in regional seasonal average temperature and precipitation change are analysed and the local response of ‘extreme’ weather events to climate warming is assessed using daily model output. The analyses suggest that in comparison with the GCM, the RCM does not provide fundamentally different patterns of seasonal climate change and daily weather response over Scotland, although it does capture more subtle spatial variations in these changes. The RCM also simulates more realistic daily weather events than the GCM, although the relative changes in the frequencies of daily extremes are not greatly different. However, with the limited length of the single model simulation analysed here, it is not easy to establish how robust and significant are the sub‐national patterns of climate response across Scotland. To improve the quality and comprehensiveness of regional climate change scenario information, a number of research issues remain to be addressed.