Carril A. F. auteur aut IRD Menendez C. G. auteur aut IRD Remedio A. R. C. auteur aut IRD Robledo F. auteur aut IRD Sorensson A. auteur aut IRD Tencer B. auteur aut IRD Boulanger Jean-Philippe auteur aut IRD de Castro M. auteur aut IRD Jacob D. auteur aut IRD Le Treut H. auteur aut IRD Li L. Z. X. auteur aut IRD Penalba O. auteur aut IRD Pfeifer S. auteur aut IRD Rusticucci M. auteur aut IRD Salio P. auteur aut IRD Samuelsson P. auteur aut IRD Sanchez E. auteur aut IRD Zaninelli P. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf born digital access The ability of four regional climate models to reproduce the present-day South American climate is examined with emphasis on La Plata Basin. Models were integrated for the period 1991-2000 with initial and lateral boundary conditions from ERA-40 Reanalysis. The ensemble sea level pressure, maximum and minimum temperatures and precipitation are evaluated in terms of seasonal means and extreme indices based on a percentile approach. Dispersion among the individual models and uncertainties when comparing the ensemble mean with different climatologies are also discussed. The ensemble mean is warmer than the observations in South Eastern South America (SESA), especially for minimum winter temperatures with errors increasing in magnitude towards the tails of the distributions. The ensemble mean reproduces the broad spatial pattern of precipitation, but overestimates the convective precipitation in the tropics and the orographic precipitation along the Andes and over the Brazilian Highlands, and underestimates the precipitation near the monsoon core region. The models overestimate the number of wet days and underestimate the daily intensity of rainfall for both seasons suggesting a premature triggering of convection. The skill of models to simulate the intensity of convective precipitation in summer in SESA and the variability associated with heavy precipitation events (the upper quartile daily precipitation) is far from satisfactory. Owing to the sparseness of the observing network, ensemble and observations uncertainties in seasonal means are comparable for some regions and seasons. specialized Regional climate models Multi-RCM ensemble validation South Eastern South America South America 021 020 39 12 2747-2768 2012 0930-7575 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010057364 10.1007/s00382-012-1573-z 0930-7575 [F B010057364] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010057364 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/2012/12/010057364.pdf Accès réservé (Intranet de l'IRD) IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2013-01-09 2017-08-23 fdi:010057364 fre