Climate change scenarios for northern Europe from multi-model IPCC AR4 climate simulations

An empirical-statistical downscaling analysis for monthly mean temperature and precipitation is presented for a multi-model ensemble of the most recent climate scenarios (Special Report Emission Scenario A1b) produced for the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 4 (AR4). The analysis involves a model evaluation by incorporating common EOF analysis, where the degree of similarity between the spatial structure of large-scale anomalies in re-analysis products and the climate models is examined. The empirical-statistical downscaling incorporates local information for a given set of locations, however, additional geographical information is utilised in the spatial interpolation of the results. A best-estimate of trend is derived through a Bayesian approach. Thus, maps of multi-model mean scenarios for annual mean temperature and precipitation rates for the 21st century are obtained. Positive trends are found in both temperature and precipitation over northern Europe.