Performance evaluations of CMIP6 and CMIP5 models for precipitation simulation over the Hanjiang River Basin, China

Abstract Projecting the climate change impacts on hydrology and water resources relies scenarios simulated by general circulation models (GCMs), which requires a systematic comprehensive assessment of GCMs’ simulation performances at regional scale. This study evaluates precipitation over Hanjiang River Basin (HRB) six from Phase 6 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), corresponding previous CMIP5, their multi-model ensemble (MME) based observational data in CN05.1. To our knowledge, this is first preliminary HRB. The Taylor diagram (including standard deviation, root-mean-square difference, correlation coefficient) skill score are used for evaluation performances. spatial pattern temporal HRB CMIP6 CMIP5 compared relative biases. results show that don't necessarily perform better than simulating MME exhibits superior performance to any individual model, CMIP6-MME more skillful CMIP5-MME. As variation characteristics, biases both present models, bias lower overestimate January June, simulate larger areas seasons with less precipitation, while they findings obtained could provide scientific reference research future hydrological cycle predictions