The main aims of this paper are the evaluation of five large-scale hydrological models across Europe and the assessment of the suitability of the models for making projections under climate change. While we found large inter-model differences in biases, the skill to simulate interannual variability in discharge did not differ much between the models. Assuming that the skill of a model to simulate interannual variability provides a measure for the model’s ability to make projections under climate
The main aims of this paper are the evaluation of five large-scale hydrological models across...
Review status: this preprint was under review for the journal HESS. A revision for further review has not been submitted.
Evaluation of five hydrological models across Europe and their suitability for making projections under climate change
W. Greuell1,J. C. M. Andersson2,C. Donnelly2,L. Feyen3,D. Gerten4,F. Ludwig1,G. Pisacane5,P. Roudier3,and S. Schaphoff4W. Greuell et al.W. Greuell1,J. C. M. Andersson2,C. Donnelly2,L. Feyen3,D. Gerten4,F. Ludwig1,G. Pisacane5,P. Roudier3,and S. Schaphoff4
1Earth System Sciences (ESS) group, Wageningen University and Research centre, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, 6708 PB Wageningen, the Netherlands
2SMHI – Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Hydrological Research, 601 76 Norrköping, Sweden
3Climate and Risk management unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES), Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission (EC), Via Enrico Fermi, 2749, 21027 Ispra VA, Italy
4Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Research Domain I: Earth System Analysis, Telegrafenberg A62, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
5Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Lungotevere Thaon di Revel, 76 – 00196 Rome, Italy
1Earth System Sciences (ESS) group, Wageningen University and Research centre, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, 6708 PB Wageningen, the Netherlands
2SMHI – Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Hydrological Research, 601 76 Norrköping, Sweden
3Climate and Risk management unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES), Joint Research Centre (JRC), European Commission (EC), Via Enrico Fermi, 2749, 21027 Ispra VA, Italy
4Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Research Domain I: Earth System Analysis, Telegrafenberg A62, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
5Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), Lungotevere Thaon di Revel, 76 – 00196 Rome, Italy
Correspondence: W. Greuell (wouter.greuell@wur.nl)
Received: 21 Aug 2015 – Accepted for review: 11 Sep 2015 – Discussion started: 09 Oct 2015
Abstract. The main aims of this paper are the evaluation of five large-scale hydrological models across Europe and the assessment of the suitability of the models for making projections under climate change. For the evaluation, 22 years of discharge measurements from 46 large catchments were exploited. In the reference simulations forcing was taken from the E-OBS dataset for precipitation and temperature, and from the WFDEI dataset for other variables. On average across all catchments, biases were small for four of the models, ranging between −29 and +23 mm yr−1 (−9 and +8 %), while one model produced a large negative bias (−117 mm yr−1; −38 %). Despite large differences in e.g. the evapotranspiration schemes, the skill to simulate interannual variability did not differ much between the models, which can be ascribed to the dominant effect of interannual variation in precipitation on interannual variation in discharge. Assuming that the skill of a model to simulate interannual variability provides a measure for the model's ability to make projections under climate change, the skill of future discharge projections will not differ much between models. The quality of the simulation of the mean annual cycles, and low and high discharge was found to be related to the degree of calibration of the models, with the more calibrated models outperforming the crudely and non-calibrated models. The sensitivity to forcing was investigated by carrying out alternative simulations with all forcing variables from WFDEI, which increased biases by between +66 and +85 mm yr−1 (21–28 %), significantly changed the inter-model ranking of the skill to simulate the mean and increased the magnitude of interannual variability by 28 %, on average.
The main aims of this paper are the evaluation of five large-scale hydrological models across Europe and the assessment of the suitability of the models for making projections under climate change. While we found large inter-model differences in biases, the skill to simulate interannual variability in discharge did not differ much between the models. Assuming that the skill of a model to simulate interannual variability provides a measure for the model’s ability to make projections under climate
The main aims of this paper are the evaluation of five large-scale hydrological models across...