Abstract :
[en] The latest EURO-CORDEX simulations, downscaling CMIP6 GCMs, provide an improved representation of urban areas compared to the previous CORDEX-CMIP5 generation, partly motivated by the increasing demand for urban-scale climate information for adaptation and planning, as reflected in the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities.
In this study, we evaluate the ERA5-driven EURO-CORDEX ensemble (CMIP6 generation) for its ability to represent urban areas and simulate urban climate across nearly 100 European cities. We further assess the sensitivity of urban–rural contrasts to geographical location and urban parameterization schemes. Results show that the urban heat island effect is captured in most cities, with a more realistic representation in models that include urban canopy schemes. The urban dry island effect and wind speed attenuation are also identified, although they exhibit greater inter-model variability than temperature.
Models identify spatial patterns across the analyzed cities, including geographical climatic gradients, the urban cool island effect in arid regions, and coastal influences. Comparison with observations highlights challenges in evaluating RCMs, underscoring the need for dense and representative observational networks or alternative approaches.
This work provides the first systematic evaluation of urban climate representation in EURO-CORDEX, identifies suitable sub-ensembles, and informs future model development.
Funding text :
N.Z., S.S., T.H. and J.F. acknowledge support from Horizon Europe project Impetus4Change (I4C, grant id. 101081555). N.Z. acknowledges funding from Ministero dell'Universit`a e della Ricerca under the call Fondo Italiano per la Scienza 2022-2023 (FIS-2) for the project "Mediterranean Extreme Events and Tipping elements in a changing climate on multiple spatiotemporal scales", grant number FIS-2023-00159, CUP: D53C24005450001. M.D., A.C, M.R. and M.A. acknowledge support from the European Union's HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions under grant agreement No 101137851, project CARMINE (Climate- Resilient Development Pathways in Metropolitan Regions of Europe, https://carmine-project.eu). A.C., G.S.L. and J.F. acknowledge support from Grant PID2023-149997OA-I00 (PROTECT) funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF/EU. E.K. and V.P. acknowledge support from H.F.R.I “Basic research Financing (Horizontal support of all Sciences)” under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0” funded by the European Union—NextGenerationEU (H.F.R.I. Project Number:14696). Their work was supported by computational time granted from the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology S.A. (GRNET S.A.) in the National HPC facility - ARIS - under project ID pr017036_thin. T.H. acknowledges support partly by the Project OP JAK "Natural and anthropogenic georisks" No.CZ.02.01.014/0022_008/0004605. We are grateful to Christina Pop, who performed the REMO-iMOVE simulations, supported by the project OptFor-EU within the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101060554. For the REMO-iMOVE simulations we used resources of the Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum (DKRZ) granted by its Scientific Steering Committee (WLA) under project ID bg1370. J.M. acknowledges funding by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) and the European Commission NextGeneration EU (Regulation EU 2020/2094), through CSIC's Interdisciplinary Thematic Platform Clima (PTI-Clima).
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