Climate Change Projections for Precipitation in Portugal

The strong irregularity of precipitation in Portugal, which may e. g. trigger severe/extreme droughts and floods, results in a high vulnerability of the country to precipitation inter-annual variability and to its extremes. Furthermore, dryer future climates are projected for Portugal, though there has also been some growing evidence for a strengthening of precipitation extremes. Due to the central role played byprecipitation on many socio-economic sectors and environmental systems, regional climate change assessments for precipitation in Portugal are necessary. This study is focused on analyzing climate change projections for seasonal (3-month) precipitation totals and their corresponding extremes over mainland Portugal. Taking into account the strong seasonality of the precipitation regimes in Portugal, winter (DJF) and summer (JJA) are considered separately. Precipitation datasets generated by a 16-member ensemble of regional climate model experiments from the ENSEMBLES project are used. Percentile-based indices of precipitation are computed and analyzed for a recent past period (1961-2000) and for a near future period (2041-2070). Results for the R5p, R50p and R95p indices highlight significant projected changes in precipitation, with a clear distinction between northwestern Portugal and the rest of the country in both seasons. Overall, precipitation is projected to decrease in both seasons, particularly over northwestern Portugal in winter, despite some significant regional differences. Although precipitation is projected to decrease in most cases, extremely high seasonal precipitations (above the 95th percentile) areexpected to increase in winter.