Processing and analysing an ensemble of climate projections for the joint research project KLIWAS

Abstract. The research programme KLIWAS, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban affairs is focussed on climate change and its impacts on waterways and navigation for Germany in the 21th century. In order to derive sound statements about the range of possible future climate changes, KLIWAS use hydro-meteorological information derived from a wide variety of global and regional climate models.

In the framework of KLIWAS emphasis is taken on the quantification of uncertainties in climate model output. Therefore, a 19-member ensemble of climate model runs was used. On the basis of the SRES-scenario A1B the probabilities of changes in air temperature, precipitation amount, global radiation and several climate indices were computed for near (2021 to 2050) and distant (2071–2100) scenario horizons.

Furthermore, statistical downscaling techniques, including approved bias correction methods, were used to provide a spatial high-resolution sub-ensemble of eight climate model simulations for climate change impact investigations.