Changes of the Arctic climate under the SRES B2 scenario conditions

Abstract

In the framework of the Sonderforschungsbereich 512 ("Cyclones and the North Atlantic climate system"), regional climate simulations of a control period (nominally 1970-1979) and future Arctic climate (2070-2079) have been conducted with the regional climate model REMO. The regional simulation has been initialised and driven by results of the global climate model ECHAM4 on the basis of the SRES B2 scenario. The model domain encloses the entire Arctic region. Compared to the interdecadal variability of max. 1 K for temperature and max. 25 mm for annual mean precipitation deduced from results of the global simulations, the mean temperature increase of 5.5 K between the two periods derived from the regional simulation and the increase in annual mean precipitation of 80 mm can be interpreted as climate change signal. The differences between the global and the regional simulation do not show up in spatial and temporal mean values but in the broader distribution of the precipitation intensities in the regional model as well as in smaller spatial variabilities for the global simulation especially over land areas.