Future change of extreme rainfall quantile in Korea: Multi Model Ensemble (MME) scenarios from regional climate models

The frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events are increasing with climate change, and natural disasters such as droughts and floods cause enormous socio-economic damages. The extreme flood is one of the most important issues for climate change research and adaptation policy. The future extreme flood could be estimated by applying to hydrological model using future rainfall quantile, and this methodology is mainly used in climate change research. Therefore, future rainfall quantile is quite important and meaningful in climate change research and related hydrological field.

This study examines the future change of extreme rainfall quantile in Korea. The five regional climate models (RCMs) data are provided by Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) climate information portal service website (www.climate.go.kr). The five RCMs are included as HadGEM3-RA, RegCM4, SNU-RCM, SNU-WRF, and GRIMs. The extreme rainfall quantiles extracted data from 5 RCMs were used for Multi Model Ensemble (MME). The MME were performed in two different procedures because the results depend on how the ensemble was constructed. Case 1 is that the MME was conducted for entire results analyzed from each RCM. Case 2 is that the MME was conducted for precipitation data of 5 RCMs. The Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios were considered in this study. The precipitation data from RCMs were divided into historical period (1979-2005) and future period (2011-2050). The MME results of each case were compared and analyzed with the uncertainty of MME.