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Regional climate models have frequently been shown to add value over GCMs. Questions related to what added value is and how it can be assessed. |
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What is added value?
Added value of high-resolution regional climate models with respect to the underlying global climate models means that they are better at representing processes in the climate system and thereby better at simulating regional climate including its variability and trends. It could also mean that they are better at accurately projecting future climate change.
In principle, added value in RCMs over coarse-scale GCMs stems from the RCMs better resolving land-sea contrasts, height of mountains and various important processes in the climate system such as mid-latitude cyclones and frontal systems. While this constitutes added value on a basic level it can be more difficult to actually measure it. In particular, as large-scale conditions from a global climate model can be flawed, a regional climate model cannot necessarily change this situation even if some features may be better represented (Sørland et al. 2018).
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