Articles | Volume 21, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4433-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4433-2017
Research article
 | 
07 Sep 2017
Research article |  | 07 Sep 2017

Event-based stochastic point rainfall resampling for statistical replication and climate projection of historical rainfall series

Søren Thorndahl, Aske Korup Andersen, and Anders Badsberg Larsen

Abstract. Continuous and long rainfall series are a necessity in rural and urban hydrology for analysis and design purposes. Local historical point rainfall series often cover several decades, which makes it possible to estimate rainfall means at different timescales, and to assess return periods of extreme events. Due to climate change, however, these series are most likely not representative of future rainfall. There is therefore a demand for climate-projected long rainfall series, which can represent a specific region and rainfall pattern as well as fulfil requirements of long rainfall series which includes climate changes projected to a specific future period.

This paper presents a framework for resampling of historical point rainfall series in order to generate synthetic rainfall series, which has the same statistical properties as an original series. Using a number of key target predictions for the future climate, such as winter and summer precipitation, and representation of extreme events, the resampled historical series are projected to represent rainfall properties in a future climate. Climate-projected rainfall series are simulated by brute force randomization of model parameters, which leads to a large number of projected series. In order to evaluate and select the rainfall series with matching statistical properties as the key target projections, an extensive evaluation procedure is developed.

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Short summary
Time series of rainfall are developed in order to represent future climate conditions. These series can be used in design of, for example, drainage systems where future rainfall loads are important to account for. The climate projections are evaluated on a number of key statistical parameters of rainfall such as yearly and seasonal precipitation amounts, number of extreme events and rainfall intensities, specific duration, and return periods.