Climate change in the High Mountain Asia in CMIP6

Abstract

Climate change over High Mountain Asia (HMA, including the Tibetan Plateau) is investigated over the period 1979–2014 and in future projections following the four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways: SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5. The skill of 26 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) models is estimated for near-surface air temperature, snow cover extent and total precipitation, and 10 of them are used to describe their projections until 2100. Similarly to previous CMIP models, this new generation of general circulation models (GCMs) shows a mean cold bias over this area reaching −1.9 [−8.2 to 2.9] °C (90 % confidence interval) in comparison with the Climate Research Unit (CRU) observational dataset, associated with a snow cover mean overestimation of 12 % [−13 % to 43 %], corresponding to a relative bias of 52 % [−53 % to 183 %] in comparison with the NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) satellite dataset. The temperature and snow cover model biases are more pronounced in winter. Simulated precipitation rates are overestimated by 1.5 [0.3 to 2.9] mm d−1, corresponding to a relative bias of 143 % [31 % to 281 %], but this might be an apparent bias caused by the undercatch of solid precipitation in the APHRODITE (Asian Precipitation-Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources) observational reference. For most models, the cold surface bias is associated with an overestimation of snow cover extent, but this relationship does not hold for all models, suggesting that the processes of the origin of the biases can differ from one model to another. A significant correlation between snow cover bias and surface elevation is found, and to a lesser extent between temperature bias and surface elevation, highlighting the model weaknesses at high elevation. The models with the best performance for temperature are not necessarily the most skillful for the other variables, and there is no clear relationship between model resolution and model skill. This highlights the need for a better understanding of the physical processes driving the climate in this complex topographic area, as well as for further parameterization developments adapted to such areas. A dependency of the simulated past trends on the model biases is found for some variables and seasons; however, some highly biased models fall within the range of observed trends, suggesting that model bias is not a robust criterion to discard models in trend analysis. The HMA median warming simulated over 2081–2100 with respect to 1995–2014 ranges from 1.9 [1.2 to 2.7] °C for SSP1-2.6 to 6.5 [4.9 to 9.0] °C for SSP5-8.5. This general warming is associated with a relative median snow cover extent decrease from −9.4 % [−16.4 % to −5.0 %] to −32.2 % [−49.1 % to −25.0 %] and a relative median precipitation increase from 8.5 % [4.8 % to 18.2 %] to 24.9 % [14.4 % to 48.1 %] by the end of the century in these respective scenarios. The warming is 11 % higher over HMA than over the other Northern Hemisphere continental surfaces, excluding the Arctic area. Seasonal temperature, snow cover and precipitation changes over HMA show a linear relationship with the global surface air temperature (GSAT), except for summer snow cover which shows a slower decrease at strong levels of GSAT.