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Examining the Robustness of Weakened Orographic Influence on Precipitation in Downscaled Climate Projections Over the Western US

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2025gl119251· OSTI ID:3019317
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [5]
  1. Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR (United States)
  2. Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR (United States); WEST Consultants, Folsom, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, WY (United States)
  4. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  5. Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Assessing local climate change impacts often requires downscaling coarse global climate model (GCM) output to finer resolution. Two main approaches exist: dynamical downscaling using high-resolution regional climate models, and statistical downscaling based on historical relationships between large-scale and local variables. In a recent analysis of five dynamically downscaled simulations over the western United States, Koszuta et al. (2024, https://doi.org/10.1029/2023gl107298) found that warming weakens orographic influence on winter precipitation, damping increases on windward slopes and amplifying them in rain-shadowed regions. Here we show that this effect is robust across seasons and multiple dynamically downscaled ensembles, and is more pronounced at higher model resolutions. However, it is absent in projections from a widely used statistical model (LOCA2), even when trained on high-resolution future simulations (LOCA2-Hybrid). This highlights a key limitation of many statistical downscaling methods: their preservation of parent GCM trends, which usually fail to capture emergent changes in orographic precipitation patterns.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344
Other Award/Contract Number:
AGS-2024212
OSTI ID:
3019317
Report Number(s):
LLNL--JRNL-2011188
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 53; ISSN 1944-8007; ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Environmental sciences
dynamical downscaling
orographic precipitation
regional climate change
statistical downscaling