IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/climat/v131y2015i4p649-661.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing climate models using an impact model: what are the advantages?

Author

Listed:
  • Marc Stéfanon
  • Nicolas Martin-StPaul
  • Paul Leadley
  • Sophie Bastin
  • Alessandro Dell’Aquila
  • Philippe Drobinski
  • Clemente Gallardo

Abstract

Global and regional climate model (GCM and RCM) outputs are often used as climate forcing for ecological impact models, and this potentially results in large cumulative errors because information and error are passed sequentially along the modeling chain from GCM to RCM to impact model. There are also a growing number of Earth system modeling platforms in which climate and ecological models are dynamically coupled, and in this case error amplification due to feedbacks can lead to even more serious problems. It is essential in both cases to rethink the organization of evaluation which typically relies on independent validation at each successive step, and to rely more heavily on analyses that cover the full modeling chain and thus require stronger interactions between climate and impact modelers. In this paper, we illustrate the benefits of using impact models as an additional source of information for evaluating climate models. Four RCMs that are part of the HyMeX (Hydrological cycle in Mediterranean EXperiment) and Mediterranean CORDEX projects (MED-CORDEX) were tested with observed climatology and a process-based model of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) tree growth and forest ecosystem functioning that has been rigorously validated. This two part analysis i) indicates that evaluation of RCMs on climate variables alone may be insufficient to determine the suitability of RCMs for studies of climate-forest interactions and ii) points to areas of improvement in these RCMs that would improve impact studies or behavior in coupled climate-ecosystem models over the spatial domain studied. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Stéfanon & Nicolas Martin-StPaul & Paul Leadley & Sophie Bastin & Alessandro Dell’Aquila & Philippe Drobinski & Clemente Gallardo, 2015. "Testing climate models using an impact model: what are the advantages?," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 131(4), pages 649-661, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:131:y:2015:i:4:p:649-661
    DOI: 10.1007/s10584-015-1412-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-015-1412-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10584-015-1412-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davi, H. & Barbaroux, C. & Dufrêne, E. & François, C. & Montpied, P. & Bréda, N. & Badeck, F., 2008. "Modelling leaf mass per area in forest canopy as affected by prevailing radiation conditions," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 211(3), pages 339-349.
    2. Tobias Lung & Alessandro Dosio & William Becker & Carlo Lavalle & Laurens Bouwer, 2013. "Assessing the influence of climate model uncertainty on EU-wide climate change impact indicators," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 120(1), pages 211-227, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. M. Ruiz-Ramos & A. Rodríguez & A. Dosio & C. Goodess & C. Harpham & M. Mínguez & E. Sánchez, 2016. "Comparing correction methods of RCM outputs for improving crop impact projections in the Iberian Peninsula for 21st century," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 283-297, January.
    2. Juan F. Fernández-Manjarrés & Paloma Ruiz-Benito & Miguel A. Zavala & J. Julio Camarero & Fernando Pulido & Vânia Proença & Laetitia Navarro & Roxane Sansilvestri & Elena Granda & Laura Marqués & Mart, 2018. "Forest Adaptation to Climate Change along Steep Ecological Gradients: The Case of the Mediterranean-Temperate Transition in South-Western Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-18, August.
    3. Getachew Tegegne & Assefa M. Melesse, 2020. "Multimodel Ensemble Projection of Hydro-climatic Extremes for Climate Change Impact Assessment on Water Resources," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 34(9), pages 3019-3035, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sainte-Marie, J. & Saint-André, L. & Nouvellon, Y. & Laclau, J.-P. & Roupsard, O. & le Maire, G. & Delpierre, N. & Henrot, A. & Barrandon, M., 2014. "A new probabilistic canopy dynamics model (SLCD) that is suitable for evergreen and deciduous forest ecosystems," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 290(C), pages 121-133.
    2. Hamish Clarke & Andrew J. Pitman & Jatin Kala & Claire Carouge & Vanessa Haverd & Jason P. Evans, 2016. "An investigation of future fuel load and fire weather in Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 591-605, December.
    3. Alessandro Dosio & Christopher Lennard & Jonathan Spinoni, 2022. "Projections of indices of daily temperature and precipitation based on bias-adjusted CORDEX-Africa regional climate model simulations," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 1-24, January.
    4. Ciscar, Juan-Carlos & Feyen, Luc & Soria, Antonio & Lavalle, Carlo & Raes, Frank & Perry, Miles & Nemry, Françoise & Demirel, Hande & Rozsai, Máté & Dosio, Alessandro & Donatelli, Marcello & Srivastav, 2014. "Climate Impacts in Europe - The JRC PESETA II Project," MPRA Paper 55725, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Campioli, Matteo & Verbeeck, Hans & Van den Bossche, Joris & Wu, Jian & Ibrom, Andreas & D’Andrea, Ettore & Matteucci, Giorgio & Samson, Roeland & Steppe, Kathy & Granier, André, 2013. "Can decision rules simulate carbon allocation for years with contrasting and extreme weather conditions? A case study for three temperate beech forests," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 263(C), pages 42-55.
    6. Catrinel COTAE, 2015. "ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS A ND REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS: BRIDGING THE CONCEPTUAL GAP (International Conference "Recent Advances in Economic and Social Research", 13-14 mai 2015, București)," Institute for Economic Forecasting Conference Proceedings 151204, Institute for Economic Forecasting.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:climat:v:131:y:2015:i:4:p:649-661. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.