Climate change in the next 30 years: What can a convection-permitting model tell us that we did not already know?

To investigate the climate change in the next 30 years over a complex terrain in southwestern Germany, simulations performed with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM at convection-permitting resolution are compared to simulations at 7 km resolution with parameterised convection. An earlier study has shown the main benefits of convection-permitting resolution in the hourly statistics and the diurnal cycle of precipitation intensities. Here, we investigate whether the improved simulation of precipitation in the convection-permitting model is affecting future climate projections in summer. Overall, the future scenario (ECHAM5 with A1B forcing) brings weak changes in mean precipitation, but stronger hourly intensities in the morning and less frequent but more intense daily precipitation. The two model simulations produce similar changes in climate, despite differences in their physical characteristics linked to the formation of convective precipitation. A significant increase in the morning precipitation probably due to large-scale forced convection is found when considering only the most extreme events (above 50 mm/day). In this case, even the diurnal cycles of precipitation and convection-related indices are similar between resolutions, leading to the conclusion that the 7 km model sufficiently resolves the most extreme convective events. In this region and time periods, the 7 km resolution is deemed sufficient for most assessments of near future precipitation change. However, conclusions could be dependent on the characteristics of the region of investigation.