Sur le bassin méditerranéen, les projections climatiques pour la fin du siècle indiquent un assèchement des étés accompagné d'une intensification des précipitations.Dans ce contexte, la caractérisation de la pluviométrie de la région est nécessaire pour appréhender son évolution future.Les modèles climatiques régionaux (RCM) sont des outils essentiels pour la compréhension du climat régional et pour la projection de son évolution.L'objectif de cette thèse est alors de caractériser et d'évaluer la pluie simulée par les RCM dans le sud-est de la France, typique des régions méditerranéennes côtières.La description de la pluie observée aux mêmes échelles que les RCM en est un préalable.La pluie observée et simulée est caractérisée en termes de valeurs et de structure spatiale et temporelle de l'occurrence et de l'intensité.Les liens entre ces caractéristiques et les processus physiques sous-jacents sont explorés grâce à une analyse par type de temps.Dans les modèles, le volume annuel total d'eau apporté par la pluie sur l'ensemble de la région d'étude est proche des valeurs observées.Ce volume n'est toutefois pas réparti également dans le temps et dans l'espace dans les observations et dans les simulations.Parmi les multiples caractéristiques de la pluie observée et simulée, cette étude souligne l'influence des forçages du relief et des processus liés au cycle diurne de l'énergie solaire à la fois sur le déclenchement et sur l'intensité des précipitations.Ainsi, la pluie se produit préférentiellement en fin d'après-midi, en lien avec le chauffage diurne de la surface.Cependant, dans les modèles, le maximum d'occurrence est plus précoce que dans les observations, ce qui suggère une réponse trop rapide du schéma de convection au cycle diurne des flux de surface, liée à l'absence de la phase de transition entre la convection peu profonde et la convection profonde dans la majorité des schémas.Par ailleurs, au sein du domaine d'étude, l'influence du relief sur les caractéristiques de la pluie est plus marquée pour les Cévennes que pour les Préalpes.Les RCM reproduisent cette influence du relief sur les caractéristiques de pluie.Toutefois, les contrastes entre plaines et reliefs sont plus accentués dans les modèles que dans les observations, notamment lorsque le forçage de grande échelle est faible et la convection dominante dans la région d'étude.L'accentuation du contraste entre plaine et montagne dans les modèles semble donc provenir d'une trop grande sensibilité des schémas de convection au relief qui favorise la convergence et l'instabilité de la masse d'air. / Climate projections for the end of the century indicate drier summers and more intense precipitation in the Mediterranean.In this respect, the characterization of rainfall in the region is necessary to understand its future changes.Regional climate models (RCM) are essential tools to understand the regional climate and to project its future evolution.This thesis aims at characterizing and evaluating rainfall simulated by RCM in Southeast France, typical of the mediterranean coastal regions.The description of observed rainfall at the same scales as RCM is a prerequisite.Observed and simulated rainfall is described in terms of values and spatial and temporal structure of occurrence and intensity.Weather types are used to explore the relation between rainfall features and the underlying physical processes.In the RCM, the annual total volume of water precipitated over the study region is closed to the observed values.However, this total volume is not distributed the same in space and time in the RCM simulations and in the observations.Among the multiple facets of the rainfall climatology, this study highlights the influence of the relief and of the solar cycle both in the triggering and in the intensity of rain.Rain appears to occur preferentially in the late afternoon, in connection with the daytime heating of the surface.However, the maximum of rain occurrence simulated by the RCM is earlier than in the observations, suggesting a too quick response of the convection scheme to the diurnal cycle of surface fluxes, in relation to the absence of transition between shallow and deep convection in most schemes.Besides, within the study region, the orographic forcing appears to be quite different for the two ranges of the domain and is much more pronounced over the Cévennes.The RCM reproduce the influence of the topography on rainfall features.Yet, the contrast between plains and mountains is more pronounced in the models than in the observations, especially when the large-scale forcing is weak and the convection is prevailing in the study area.The contrast accentuation between plain and relief in the models seems to be due to a too high sensitivity of the convection schemes to the air mass convergence and instability favored by the relief.

Title: Uncertainties in regional climate models outputs Author: RNDr. Eva Holtanová Supervisor: doc. RNDr. Jaroslava Kalvová, CSc. Department: Dept. of Meteorology and Environment Protection Faculty of Mathematics and Physics Charles University in Prague Present doctoral thesis focuses on the analysis of uncertainties in regional climate model outputs in the area of the Czech Republic. Generally, the uncertainties in model outputs come from inaccuracies of initial and boundary conditions, further from the necessity to parameterize the small scale processes, and the structure of the model, e.g. the choice of numerical schemes or spatial resolution. In case of the simulations of future climate, another source of uncertainty arises. It is the unknown development of forcings that influence the climate system. The analysis in this work focuses on two multi-model ensembles, that come from two international European projects PRUDENCE and ENSEMBLES. The simulated 30-year mean seasonal air temperature and precipitation amounts are used, for the reference period 1961- 1990, and several future time periods. Two techniques were employed to assess the uncertainties. The first one was aimed at dividing the variance of a multi-model ensemble into contributions of regional model, driving global model and emission...

Title: Links between atmospheric circulation and surface air temperature distributions in climate models Abstract: This thesis comprises a collection of five papers dealing with validation of regional climate model (RCM) simulations over Central Europe. The first paper illustrates and discusses problems with observed data that are used for model validation and how the choice of reference dataset affects the outcomes in validating the RCMs' performances. The second paper evaluates daily temperatures, and it indicates that some temperature biases may be related to deficiencies in the simulations of large- scale atmospheric circulation. RCMs' ability to simulate atmospheric circulation and the observed links between circulation and surface air temperatures are examined in detail in the third paper. This article also compares performances of individual RCMs with respect to the driving data by analysing the results for the driving data themselves. The fourth paper focuses on biases in the diurnal temperature range within RCMs and their possible causes by examining links of the errors to the at- mospheric circulation and cloud amount. The last paper investigates the observed relationships between atmospheric circulation and daily precipitation amounts over three regions in the Czech Republic, as well as how these...

Title: Spatiotemporal variability of global and regional climate models Author: RNDr. Lenka Crhová Department: Department of Atmospheric Physics Supervisor: RNDr. Eva Holtanová, Ph.D., Department of Atmospheric Physics Abstract: This thesis deals with variability of basic meteorological variables in global and regional climate models (GCMs and RCMs) outputs. Three different approaches were used in order to analyse climate models' ability to represent different aspects of variability of meteorological variables. The temporal variability with focus on its changes during a time and temporal scale components were studied. The relationship between air temperature and precipitation were employed in order to investigate the representation of spatiotemporal variability in climate models. Moreover, the influence of different characteristics of climate model simulations, such as the size of the RCM integration domain or differences between RCM and GCM simulations, were also considered. Two simulations of RCM ALADIN-Climate/CZ with different sizes of integration domain and their driving simulation of GCM ARPÉGE-Climat were used for analysis of the temporal changes in temperature mean and variability and selected simulations of RCMs and GCMs from the EURO-CORDEX and CMIP5 projects were employed for analyses of...

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