The role of the land-surface model for climate change projections over the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

The importance of land-surface processes within Regional Climate Models for accurately reproducing the present-day climate is well known. However, their role when projecting future climate is still poorly reported. Hence, this work assesses the influence of the land-surface processes, particularly the contribution of soil moisture, when projecting future changes for temperature, precipitation and wind over a complex area as the Iberian Peninsula, which, in addition, shows great sensitivity to climate change. The main signals are found for the summer season, when the results indicate a strengthening in the increases projected for both mean temperature and temperature variability as a consequence of the future intensification of the positive soil moisture-temperature feedback. The more severe warming over the inner dry Iberian Peninsula further implies an intensification of the Iberian thermal low and, thus, of the cyclonic circulation. Furthermore, the land-atmosphere coupling leads to the projection of a wider future daily temperature range, since maximum temperatures are more affected than minima, a feature absent in non-coupled simulations. Regarding variability, the areas where the land-atmosphere coupling introduces larger changes are those where the reduction in the soil moisture content is more dramatic in future simulations, i.e., the so-called transitional zones. As regards precipitation, weaker positive signals for convective precipitation and more intense negative signals for non-convective precipitation are obtained as a result of the soil moisture-atmosphere interactions. These results highlight the crucial contribution of soil moisture to climate change projections and suggest its plausible key role for future projections of extreme events.