Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03083-3

Challenges and potential solutions in statistical

downscaling of precipitation

Jie Chen 1 & Xunchang John Zhang

2

Received: 15 May 2020 / Accepted: 30 March 2021 / Published online: 24 April 2021
# The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021

Abstract
Downscaling is an effective technique to bridge the gap between climate model outputs and
data requirements of most crop and hydrologic models for assessing local and site-specific
climate change impacts, especially on future food security. However, downscaling of
temporal sequences, extremes in daily precipitation, and handling of nonstationary precipi-
tation in future conditions are considered common challenges for most statistical downscaling
methods. This study reviewed the above key challenges in statistical downscaling and
proposed potential solutions. Ten weather stations located across the globe were used as
proof of concept. The use of a stochastic Markov chain to generate daily precipitation
occurrences is an effective approach to simulate the temporal sequence of precipitation. Also,
the downscaling of precipitation extremes can be achieved by adjusting the skewness
coefficient of a probability distribution, as they are highly correlated. Nonstationarity in
precipitation downscaling can be handled by adjusting parameters of a probability distribution
according to future precipitation change signals projected by climate models. The perspec-
tives proposed in this study are of great significance in using climate model outputs for
assessing local and site-specific climate change impacts, especially on future food security.

Keywords Statistical downscaling . Temporal sequence of precipitation . Daily precipitation

extreme . Nonstationarity

1 Introduction

Global warming is expected to result in changes in temperature and precipitation patterns and
bring about more frequent and more intense extreme weather events. Those potential changes
in precipitation and temperature could have substantial impacts on global food security. The

* Jie Chen
jiechen@whu.edu.cn

1
State Key Laboratory of Water Resources & Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University,
299 Bayi Road, Wuchang Distinct, Wuhan 430072 Hubei, China
2
USDA-ARS, Grazinglands Research Laboratory, 7207W. Cheyenne St., El Reno, OK 73036, USA
63 Page 2 of 19 Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

reduction of adverse impacts from climate change on food security is one of the major
challenges in the twenty-first century (Brown and Funk 2008; Campbell et al. 2016). The
development of early warning systems can help agricultural producers make adaptations to
management strategies which can reduce the impact of climate change.
Reliable climate change information provided by global and regional climate models
(GCMs and RCMs) is key to the development of agricultural management strategies to
mitigate the impact of climate on agricultural production. However, the spatial resolutions of
these models are far coarse to be used as inputs to crop models for assessing the site-specific
climate change impacts on crop production. In addition, those models usually suffer from
considerable biases due to the limited understanding of the real climate systems and the
oversimplifications of the climate processes and model parameterization (Xu 1999; Chen
et al. 2011; Kim et al. 2016). Statistical downscaling techniques were proposed to bridge the
gap between the model outputs and data requirements of impact models 20 years ago.
Significant progress has been made in recent years on this topic. A large number of methods
have been developed, which become increasingly complicated by taking into account high-
moments of the climate variable distributions and the dependences among multiple variables
and multiple sites (Vrac and Friederichs 2015; Hnilica et al. 2017; Cannon 2018). For
example, as the first results of the Validating and Integrating Downscaling Methods for
Climate Change Research (VLUUE) experiment, an ensemble of about 50 statistical methods
were compared in terms of downscaling precipitation and temperature over a set of 86 stations
in Europe (Gutiérrez et al. 2018). These downscaling methods can be generally classified into
three categories including perfect prognosis (PP), model output statistics (MOS), and stochas-
tic weather generator (SWG) (Maraun et al. 2010).
Each downscaling method/category has its advantages and limitations, especially for
precipitation downscaling. There are three key challenges in statistically downscaling daily
precipitation for a specific location or at small scales which can be framed in three questions.
(1) How to properly simulate temporal sequences of future daily precipitation? (2) How to
adequately represent extreme precipitation events for future periods? (3) How to properly
handle nonstationary precipitation under global warming and future climate changes? These
are common challenges facing precipitation downscaling, especially statistical downscaling. In
theory, a perfect climate model would have addressed these questions based on the inherent
physics of the climate systems as represented in the model. But in reality, the first two
questions are far from being resolved even in RCMs.
Downscaling the temporal sequence of daily precipitation is the first challenge. The
accurate simulation of the temporal sequence of daily precipitation is of great importance in
food security impact studies; long wet or dry spells may, respectively, result in floods or
agricultural droughts. Both conditions can damage crop production and affect food security.
However, GCMs are found incapable of simulating the temporal sequence of precipitation.
RCMs present several advantages over the parental GCMs; however, they still cannot be
directly used for local or site-specific climate change impact studies, because of the “drizzle
effect” (Maraun et al. 2010; Murphy 1999; Fowler et al. 2007; Chen et al. 2013a). Thus, a
well-designed downscaling method should take into account the simulation of precipitation
amounts as well as the temporal sequence, especially if it is designed for agricultural impact
studies.
The PP methods downscale the temporal sequence of precipitation by estimating the
statistical relationship between large-scale predictors and the local or site-specific precipitation
occurrence (Manzanas et al. 2020). However, there is often a lack of strong relationships
Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63 Page 3 of 19 63

between precipitation occurrence and large-scale predictors (Wilby et al. 2002; Chen et al.
2012a, 2014). The unsatisfactory performance of the PP methods in downscaling precipitation
occurrence has been presented in many studies (Chen et al. 2012a, 2014; Wilby et al. 1999;
Mullan et al. 2016).
The MOS methods include delta change and bias correction methods. The delta change
method assumes that the historical precipitation occurrence remains unchanged in future.
Apparently, this is not true in the real-world climate systems, as indicated by many studies
that found precipitation occurrences are not stationary for future periods (Seager et al. 2007;
Polade et al. 2014). Some improved bias correction methods take into account the correction of
the wet-day frequency by defining a threshold to ensure the wet-day frequency of GCM/RCM
precipitation series matches that of the observed data to remove the drizzle effects (Schmidli
et al. 2006; Themeßl et al. 2012; Chen et al. 2013b). However, all bias correction methods fail
to specifically correct the temporal structure of daily precipitation occurrences, which can
result in significant biases in impact studies (Chen et al. 2013a; Manzanas et al. 2020).
Downscaling of precipitation occurrence using SWG methods involves adjusting SWG
parameters based on climate change signals projected by climate models (Wilks 1992; Zhang
2005; Qian et al. 2010; Chen et al. 2012b). Depending on different types of SWG, various
parameters are used. Two types of models are usually used to generate precipitation occur-
rence: Markov chain and alternative renewal process. The former uses conditional probabilities
to simulate precipitation occurrence, and the latter considers the precipitation occurrence as a
sequence of alternating wet and dry spells of varying lengths and simulates them using various
probability distributions. The first-order Markov chain is most commonly used and is satis-
factory in simulating the temporal sequence of daily precipitation (Wilks 1999; Chen et al.
2009; Yeh and Hsu 2019), even though the higher-order or hybrid-order models may achieve a
slightly better performance for arid regions (Wilks 1999; Zhang and Garbrecht 2003; Chen and
Brissette 2014a).
The key issue of stochastically generating a correct precipitation temporal sequence is to
adjust precipitation occurrence probabilities based on climate change signals. Taking the first-
order Markov chain as an example, there are two transition probabilities that need to be
adjusted. The first transition probability is a wet following a wet day (P11), and the second is a
wet day following a dry day (P01). One solution for adjusting these transition probabilities is
to link them to mean monthly precipitation (u), since they are highly correlated (Zhang 2005,
2013a; Zhang et al. 2012). This implies that if u is available for future periods, future transition
probabilities can be obtained by establishing relationships between transition probabilities and
u using the observed historical precipitation time series at a location, which incorporates the
local climatic characteristics into downscaling. Even though the success of downscaling SWG
parameters is variable, the above approach provides a useful pathway to a downscale temporal
sequence of daily precipitation through adding a stochastic term in occurrence generation.
Downscaling of extreme precipitation events is the second challenge. Proper representation
of extreme precipitation is crucial for a downscaling method, as the extreme events are
correlated to high soil loss and crop failure. It is well-known that GCMs are unable to
adequately simulate extreme precipitation events. Similar problems exist in the daily output
from RCMs, as they usually project too many small events with too few extreme events
(Murphy 1999; Fowler et al. 2007; Maraun et al. 2010; van Roosmalen et al. 2010).
The PP methods downscale daily precipitation amounts by estimating the linear (Fowler
et al. 2007) or nonlinear (Chen et al. 2012c) relationships between large-scale climate
predictors and local or site-specific observed precipitation amounts (Gutiérrez et al. 2013;
63 Page 4 of 19 Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

Nikulin et al. 2018; Manzanas et al. 2020). The extreme precipitation events are downscaled
simultaneously as other precipitation events using the same method. The reliability of the PP
methods relies on relationships between predictors and observed daily precipitation amounts.
However, relationships are usually weak for daily precipitation, as indicated by the explained
variances often less than 30% (Wilby et al. 2002; Chen et al. 2012a, 2014), which usually
results in underestimations in standard deviation and extreme values of daily precipitation
(Hessami et al. 2008; Wilby et al. 2002; Chen et al. 2012a, 2014).
The MOS bias correction methods range from mean-based scaling to distribution (quantile)
mapping. The mean-based scaling method corrects all precipitation events within a month or
season using a constant correction factor. In other words, the extreme precipitation is supposed
to have the same percent bias as other precipitation events. This is overly simplistic, as climate
models usually simulate mean precipitation better than extremes. The distribution mapping
methods specifically take into account the precipitation extremes by high quantiles or the tail
of probability (or empirical) distribution. However, the estimated bias for high quantiles is
usually not reliable (Themeßl et al. 2012; Chen et al. 2013b).
The SWG methods simulate daily precipitation using nonparametric or parametric distri-
butions. Since the nonparametric distribution has a very limited capacity for extrapolating
extremes, it might not be appropriate to predict precipitation amounts under the altered climate
conditions (Chen and Brissette 2014b). One advantage of using parametric distributions is
their ability to extrapolate upper tails, which is also one of the main reasons of using a SWG
for risk assessments (Wilks 1999; Chen and Brissette 2014b). The key issue for satisfactorily
generating daily precipitation amounts using a parametric approach is to develop a new
probability distribution for the future climate by adjusting relevant distribution parameters
according to projected climate change signals. The extreme precipitation is represented by the
upper tail of the distribution, which is largely determined by the skewness coefficient (Zhang
et al. 2012; Zhang 2013b). Thus, the adjustment of the upper tail of a probability distribution
may be fulfilled by adjusting the skewness coefficient of a probability distribution, as they are
interdependent (Zhang 2013b). Previous attempts to adjust the skewness coefficient with
monthly or daily mean precipitation amounts were not successful (Zhang 2013a; Vaghefi
and Yu 2011; Yu 2005), because the skewness coefficient mainly reflects extreme events
rather than means.
Nonstationarity of precipitation under climate change is the third challenge in precipitation
downscaling. In the context of global warming, precipitation may change in terms of mean,
variance, and/or extremes, implying that changes in precipitation may not be stationary in the
future. A reliable downscaling method should be capable of generating climate change
scenarios for both stationary and nonstationary conditions.
The traditional PP methods fit regression equations to past climate which are directly
applied to future climate, assuming that the fitted parameters are constant over time. This
does not guarantee that the fitted relationships of the recent past climate are still held for future
nonstationary conditions. The MOS bias correction methods are based on the assumption that
the biases of climate model outputs are stationary over time. However, the assumption is often
untrue because of the natural climate variability (the chaotic nature of climate systems) and
changes in climate sensitivity to a greenhouse gas emission level (Christensen et al. 2008;
Chen et al. 2015, 2020; Maraun 2012). When future biases are less than half of the historical
biases but in the same direction or when bias directions are different between future and
historical periods, bias correction will deteriorate the raw climate simulations for the future
period (Maraun 2012; Chen et al. 2017).
Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63 Page 5 of 19 63

One solution to handle the nonstationary climate is to downscale parameters of probability

distribution functions. By adjusting parameters of a probability distribution function using
climate change signals projected by climate models, the future climate change information is
explicitly incorporated into the simulated future climate. Adjusting parameters for a probability
distribution function of the historical baseline period results in a new probability distribution
for the future period, which may or may not be stationary depending upon the magnitudes of
the adjustments. In other words, two different parameter sets are, respectively, used to generate
precipitation time series for the reference and future periods. The use of probability distribu-
tions with time-variant parameters provides a potential for simulating nonstationary future
precipitation.
The challenges in statistical downscaling of climate are the main objective of the interna-
tional Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment-Empirical Statistical Down-
scaling (CORDEX-ESD) experiment. Even though the CORDEX-ESD experiment consists of
more objectives, such as the representation of spatial dependence and the simulation of sub-
daily precipitation, the above challenges can be considered a crucial first step for any further
precipitation downscaling or processing.
This study reviews the three key challenges in statistical downscaling and proposes
potential approaches to deal with them. This objective is consistent with one of the specific
objectives of CORDEX-ESD to address the questions of “what are the shortcomings of
downscaling methods and what are the major pathways for model improvement?”

2 Methodology

2.1 Data

Ten stations around the world were used for a proof of concept. These 10 stations were
selected from various climatic zones ranging from polar to tropical climate with long-term data
records and mean annual precipitation amounts varying from 137 to 1686 mm. The
precipitation time series of these stations are all longer than 100 years with the exception of
the northernmost station of Resolute Cars, ensuring the identification of a nonstationary
change period. The basic information of these 10 stations including location, calibration, and
validation periods is presented in Table 1. The description of these stations parallels those of
Zhang et al. (2012) as follows in this paragraph. To appropriately evaluate the performance of
a downscaling method, the entire period of precipitation time series should be divided into
calibration and validation periods for each station. Generally, there are two approaches of
interest to separate the time series for systematically testing the transposability of downscaling
methods (Klemeš 1986). The first is the differential split-sample approach, which selects two
independent subsets without considering the annual order of the time series (e.g., Teutschbein
and Seibert 2013). The second is the split-sample approach, which selects two consecutive
time periods (e.g., Gutiérrez et al. 2013). The second one is similar to the first one, if the two
periods by nature show contrasting differences in their conditions (Klemeš 1986). The second
approach was used in our study, since the precipitation time series is long enough to form two
contrasting time periods. The advantage of using the second approach is the preservation of the
natural clustering and continuousness of the time series. The validation period was carefully
selected to ensure that (I) the difference in mean annual precipitation between calibration and
validation periods is maximum to represent a nonstationary climate change and (II) the length
63 Page 6 of 19 Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

of validation period is longer than 15 years to yield reliable parameter estimates. Based on
these two standards, the mean annual precipitation changes at the validation period range from
a decrease of 21% to an increase of 38% in mean annual precipitation relative to those at the
calibration periods, which can well represent the nonstationary climate conditions.

2.2 Establish relationships between transition probabilities and mean monthly

precipitation

The observed precipitation time series were used to fit a linear relationship between probabil-
ities of precipitation occurrence and mean monthly precipitation (u). The probability of
precipitation on a given day is defined in terms of the two transition probabilities (P01 and
P11) based on the wet or dry status of the previous day.

P01 = P{precipitation on day t | no precipitation on day t-1} (1a).

P11 = P{precipitation on day t | precipitation on day t-1} (1b).

To fit the relationship, the calibration period of the observed precipitation time series was
divided into two periods using two different methods. The first method involves dividing the
observed precipitation time series into wet and dry groups according to the sorted monthly
total precipitation. Specifically, monthly precipitation is calculated from the daily precipitation
time series and sorted for each calendar month. Daily precipitation time series corresponded to
half wettest months, and half driest months are used to calculate P01, P11, and u for each
group. One set of parameters (P01, P11, and u) was calculated for the wettest group and
another set of parameters was calculated for the driest group. These two points are referred as
the two end points, as they encompass all climate states at the location. The second method
involves dividing the observed precipitation time series into two even groups without sorting.
A set of three parameters were calculated for each period. In total, four sets of parameters were
calculated to fit a linear relationship between transition probabilities and u. The separation of
the wettest and driest group ensures that the fitted linear relationship is also applicable to future
nonstationary climate states for any climatic conditions within the entire range. Because the
two extreme end points of the wet and dry conditions are used, it is very unlikely that the future
climatic conditions are outside of the range of the two end points. However, if they are, the
transition probabilities can be extrapolated using the fitted linear relationship. Alternatively,
P01, P11, and u of observed time series were also calculated for each 30-year moving window
running from the first to the last year of the calibration period in a 1-year increment. Taking
Station 1 (Armagh) as an example, the 125 years of precipitation times series were divided into
96 30-year periods (i.e., 1885–1914, 1886–1915, 1887–1916, …, 1979–2008, and 1980–
2009) with a 1-year lag between each period. One set of three parameters (i.e., P01, P11, and
u) was calculated for each 30-year period to obtain 96 sets of parameters for this station. The
relationship between transition probabilities and u was plotted with the x-axis representing the
mean monthly precipitation for each running time period and the y-axis representing P01 and
P11 for each period. Since all parameters were calculated for each calendar month (same as
below for other parameters), it may cause discontinuities between the two adjacent months in
the downscaled precipitation. However, the parameters calculated for each month can be easily
smoothed by various mathematical methods. For example, the Weather Generator of École de
Technologie Supérieure (WeaGETS) provides four options of Fourier harmonics from the
first-order to the fourth-order to smooth precipitation parameters (parameters of both
Table 1 Station location, calibration and validation periods, average annual precipitation for each period, and percent change between the two periods (Zhang et al. 2012)

ID Station/ country Long. (°E) Total period Calibration period Validation period % change [a]
lat. (°N) (No. of years)
Duration[a] Mean annual Duration Mean annual
Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

precipitation (mm) precipitation (mm)

1 Armagh, UK −6.65 1865–2009 (145) 1885–2009 (125) 816.1 1865–1884 (20) 909.9 11.5
54.35
2 Durham, UK −1.57 1880–1998 (119) 1880–1888, 1913–1998 (95) 656.4 1889–1912 (24) 602.5 −8.2
54.77
3 Cataract Dam, Australia 150.80 1904–1906, 1910–2006 (100) 1910–1949, 1980–2006 (67) 960.1 1950–1979 (30) 1320.6 37.6
−34.27
4 Port Macquarie, Australia 152.86 1871–2008 (138) 1896–2008 (113) 1466.6 1871–1895 (25) 1685.2 14.9
−31.44
5 Resolute Cars, Canada −94.98 1948–2009 (62) 1948–2009 (62) 136.5 1987–2004 (18) 179.6 31.6
74.72
6 Ottawa, Canada −75.70 1891–2008 (118) 1891–1980 (90) 869.5 1981–2008 (28) 922.1 6.4
45.41
7 Barkerville, Canada −121.50 1900–2009 (110) 1933–2009 (77) 476.1 1900–1932 (33) 377.4 −20.7
53.10
8 Brenham, Texas, USA −96.40 1902–2008 (107) 1902–1990 (89) 1024.6 1991–2008 (18) 1216.2 18.7
30.16
9 Fort Pierce, Florida, USA −80.35 1909–2008 (100) 1924–2008 (85) 1365.6 1909–1923 (15) 1182.0 −13.5
27.46
10 Campinas, Brazil −47.00 1890–2010 (121) 1890–1941, 1964–2010 (99) 1419.5 1942–1963 (22) 1395.9 −9.1
−22.83
[a] Percent change of mean annual precipitation of validation period over calibration period
Page 7 of 19 63
63 Page 8 of 19 Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

precipitation occurrence and amounts) between months before generating a precipitation time
series (Chen et al. 2012d).

2.3 Establish relationships between skewness coefficients and extreme precipitation

To develop a relationship between the skewness coefficient and extreme precipitation

amounts, the ratio of the 99.9th percentile of daily precipitation to mean daily precipitation
was found to be the best predictor to simulate the extreme precipitation (Zhang 2013b). Other
high percentiles may also be used, if a stronger relationship can be found between these two
variables. The division by the mean daily precipitation is to standardize the extreme to a
dimensionless variable. The skewness coefficient and the ratio of the 99.9th percentile of daily
precipitation to mean daily precipitation of observed precipitation time series were calculated
based on the 30-year moving window approach as presented in the calculation of transition
probabilities.

2.4 Adjust parameters of the skewed normal distribution

A skewed normal distribution was used as an example to show the method of downscaling
parameters of the probability distribution functions. Previous studies have shown that the
skewed normal distribution performs better than the other commonly used probability distri-
bution in simulating extreme precipitation events (Chen and Brissette 2014a, b). The form of
the skewed normal distribution is as follows (Zhang and Garbrecht 2003).
(
 1 = )
6 g R−μ 3 g
χ¼ þ1 −1 þ ð2Þ
g 2 s 6

where R is the daily precipitation amount for a wet day; μ, s, and g are the mean, standard
deviation, and skewness coefficient of daily precipitation amount, respectively; and χ is the
standard normal deviate generated using two uniform random numbers in the interval (0,1).
The second number for 1 day is reused as the first number for the next day to preserve the
autocorrelation of daily precipitation.
When using the skewed normal distribution, there are three parameters that need to be
adjusted for a nonstationary climate downscaling: mean, variance, and skewness coefficient of
daily precipitation for each calendar month. The calculation of the skewness coefficient has
been presented above. The future mean daily precipitation amount (ud) can be calculated using
Eq. (3):
μm
μd ¼ ð3Þ
Ndπ
where Nd is the number of days in a month, π is unconditional probability of precipitation
occurrence, Ndπ is the average number of wet days in a month, and um is the mean of monthly
precipitation. The future daily variance (σ2d ) can be approximated using Eq. (4), based on the
variance of monthly precipitation (σ2m ) (Wilks 1992; Zhang 2005).

σ2m ð1−πÞð1 þ rÞ 2
σ2d ¼ − μd ð4Þ
Ndπ 1−r
Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63 Page 9 of 19 63

In Eqs. (3) and (4), π and r can be calculated using Eqs. (5) and (6).
P01
π¼ ð5Þ
1 þ P01 −P11

r ¼ P11 −P01 ð6Þ

The calculation of P01 and P11 has been presented above. The mean and variance of daily
precipitation is calculated by using Eqs. (3) and (4). The mean and variance of monthly
precipitation are needed for the future period, which can be obtained by downscaling climate
model-simulated monthly precipitation using other bias correction methods, such as the
quantile mapping method. The downscaled future monthly precipitation time series will be
used to calculate the mean and variance. In this study, the mean and variance of monthly
precipitation in Eqs. (3) and (4) were calculated based on monthly precipitation time series at
the validation period.

3 Results

3.1 Downscaling the temporal sequence of precipitation

Figure 1 presents the relationship between u and P01 (P11) for January and July precipitation
of the calibration period for two stations. These two stations represent the wettest (Port
Macquarie) and driest (Resolute Cars) locations in terms of mean annual precipitation among
the 10 stations used in this study. The results for other months and stations are presented in
Figs. S1–S10 of the supplementary materials. As attested in other studies, a strong relationship
is observed between u and P01 (P11). The correlation coefficient for all 12 months’ pooled
data (n = 4 points ×12 months = 48) ranges between 0.57 (Ottawa) and 0.95 (Campinas) for
P01 and between 0.56 (Ottawa) and 0.93 (Campinas) for P11 across all ten stations. The
relationship can also be established using a moving window approach, if the time series is long
enough. For example, the black and blue symbols in Fig. 1 and Figs. S1–S10 represent
parameters calculated using the 30-year moving window approach as mentioned earlier. The
four-point fitted curve did well at representing the data points calculated using the moving
window approach, further indicating the robustness of the linear relationship. However, for a
short time period, it may be more appropriate to use the four-point regression, as the inclusion
of the two endpoints encompasses nonstationary climate states for any climatic conditions
within the entire range (Zhang 2013a).
Based on established relationships, P01 and P11 are calculated for the validation period
using u of this period. Figure 2(a) and (b) show the scatter plots of observed versus calculated
P01 and P11 for the validation period, respectively, over all 10 stations. The results show that
the established linear lines performed reasonably well with respect to reproducing observed
P01 and P11 for the validation period experienced nonstationary changes. The Nash-Sutcliffe
coefficient (NSE), which measures how well a model reproduces observed data (Nash and
Sutcliffe 1970), is 0.89 for P01 and 0.81 for P11. The estimated P01 and P11 are further used
to drive the first-order two-state Markov chain to generate a precipitation occurrence time
series for 100 years. Figure 2(c) and (d) present the generated frequency of wet and dry day
spells versus the observed counterpart for the two stations. The results of other stations are
63 Page 10 of 19 Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

(a) 1
(b)
1

P01
0.8 0.8
P11

0.6 0.6
Transition probabilities of precipitation occurrence

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0
50 100 150 200 250 50 100 150 200

1
(c) (d)
1

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 20 30 40 50
Mean monthly precipitation (mm)

Fig. 1 Relationships between transition precipitation occurrence probabilities of wet-following-dry (P01) and
wet-following-wet (P11) and mean monthly precipitation amounts for January and July over the wettest (Port
Macquarie) and driest (Resolute Cars) stations. The straight line is the linear regression of the four calibration
points including the wettest and driest end points of sorted precipitation. The black circles and blue squares are
plotted using a 30-year moving window running from the first to the last year of calibration period in a one-year
increment

presented in Fig. S11 of supplementary materials. The frequencies of both wet and dry spells
are well reproduced due to the accurate estimation of two transition probabilities and the
reasonable performance of the first-order Markov chain shown in many studies (Wilks 1999;
Zhang and Garbrecht 2003; Chen et al. 2009). When using this disaggregation method, the
accurate future monthly precipitation should be provided for a specific site. Future monthly
precipitation can be obtained by using other downscaling or bias correction methods. Down-
scaling of monthly precipitation is easier and more reliable than downscaling of daily
precipitation.

3.2 Downscaling extreme precipitation events

Using the ratio of daily precipitation amount of the 99.9th percentile (R99.9) to the mean daily
precipitation as a proxy to represent the extreme precipitation, the relationship between the
skewness coefficient and the ratios for January (and July) precipitation extremes is presented in
Fig. 3 for the wettest (Port Macquarie) and driest (Resolute Cars) stations over the calibration
period. The results for other months and stations are presented in Figs. S12–S21 of supple-
mentary materials. A strong linear relationship between the skewness coefficient and the ratio
of R99.9 to mean daily precipitation was found for all stations and months with determination
coefficients of the linear regression ranging between 0.32 (Fort Pierce, August) and 0.99
(Cataract Dam, February).
Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63 Page 11 of 19 63

1
(a) 1 (b)

0.8 0.8

Calcualted P11
Calcualted P01

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Observed P01 Observed P11

1
(c) 1 (d)
Cumulative frequency of DWSL

Cumulative frequency of DWSL

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6

0.4 Observed dry spell 0.4 Observed dry spell

Downscaled dry spell Downscaled dry spell
Observed wet spell Observed wet spell
0.2 Downscaled wet spell 0.2 Downscaled wet spell

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0 20 40 60 80
Dry and wet spell length in day Dry and wet spell length in day

Fig. 2 Observed versus calculated P01 and P11 for the validation period [(a) and (b)] over ten stations and
observed and downscaled cumulative frequencies of dry and wet spell lengths (DWSL) in day for the validation
periods over the wettest (Port Macquarie) and driest (Resolute Cars) stations [(c) and (d)]

Based on established linear relationships, the skewness coefficient is calculated for the
validation period using the ratio of R99.9 to mean daily precipitation of the validation period
as a predictor. Scatter plots of the calculated skewness coefficients versus the observed
counterparts for the validation period (Fig. 4(a)) and the observed skewness coefficients at
the calibration period versus those at the validation period (Fig. 4(b)) show that the established
relationships perform reasonably well with respect to reproducing the observed skewness
coefficients for the validation period, which are better than the use of unadjusted skewness
coefficients (skewness coefficients in the calibration period). The NSE between the observed
and calculated skewness coefficients (0.88) is much larger than that of the observed skewness
coefficients between the calibration and validation periods (−0.23), indicating that the previous
studies (Zhang 2005; Chen et al. 2012b) presuming unchanged skewness coefficients in future
scenarios are crude and maybe improper.
Using the calculated skewness coefficients, a 100-year precipitation time series is simulated
using a skewed normal distribution for the validation period. Prior to generation of precipita-
tion amounts, the first-order, two-state Markov chain is used to generate precipitation occur-
rence for a day given the previous day being wet or dry. In other words, if a random number
drawn from a uniform distribution for a day is less than the precipitation probability for the
given previous day status, a precipitation event is generated. For generated wet days, the
skewed normal distribution is used to generate daily precipitation amounts based on another
set of random numbers. In other words, two sets of random number streams are, respectively,
used to generate precipitation occurrences and amounts. The selection of the skewed normal
distribution is because it explicitly includes a parameter of skewness coefficient for
representing the upper tail of distribution, in addition to the other two parameters (i.e., mean
63 Page 12 of 19 Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

(a) (b)
7 7

6 6

5 5

4 4

3 3
Skewness coefficient

2 2
5 10 15 20 25 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

(c) (d)
5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5

Ratio of 99.9th percentile to mean daily precipitation

Fig. 3 Relationships between observed skewness coefficient and dimensionless ratio of R99.9 to mean daily
precipitation for January and July of the calibration period over the wettest (Port Macquarie) and driest (Resolute
Cars) stations. All values are calculated using a 30-year moving window running from the first to the last year of
calibration period in a 1-year increment

and standard deviation). Other probability distributions can also be used with a specific
consideration of their upper tails. The results of estimated skewness coefficients are compared
to those of “unadjusted or baseline” (skewness coefficients of the calibration period) and
“perfect” (skewness coefficients directly calculated for the validation period) skewness coef-
ficients, which generate precipitation time series using skewness coefficients of calibration and
validation periods, respectively. Figure 4(c) and (d) presented the empirical cumulative
distribution function (ECDF) of annual maximum precipitation generated using “estimated,”
“unadjusted,” and “perfect” skewness coefficients. The results from other stations are present-
ed in Fig. S22. The results show that the estimated skewness coefficients perform either similar
to or better than the baseline or unadjusted skewness coefficients in producing the ECDF of
extreme precipitation. This further indicates the need for specific consideration of the extreme
precipitation in a downscaling method. A proper adjustment of the skewness coefficient is
warranted to generate precipitation extremes. In this study, the 30-year moving window
approach was used to calculate the skewness coefficient and the ratio of R99.9 to the mean
daily precipitation for fitting the linear relationship, since we have a long calibration period.
However, for most studies, the calibration period may not be longer enough to apply the 30-
year moving window approach. In such case, the skewness coefficient and the ratio of R99.9 to
mean daily precipitation can be calculated for each calendar month using the whole time
period, and a linear regression line is fitted to the 12 data points for use in calculating skewness
coefficients for future period for each calendar month (Zhang 2013b).
To calculate the skewness coefficient for a future period, the ratio of R99.9 to mean daily
precipitation must be known. Since the mean daily precipitation can be estimated using
Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63 Page 13 of 19 63

(a) (b)
10 10
Calcualted skewness coefficient

Calibration skewness coefficient

8 8

6 6

4 4

2 2

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 0 2 4 6 8 10
Observed skewness coefficient Validation skewness coefficient

(c) (d)
1 1

0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6
ECDF

ECDF

0.4 0.4

Perfect skewness Perfect skewness

0.2 0.2
Unchanged skewness Unchanged skewness
Calculated skwewness Calculated skwewness
0 0
50 100 150 200 250 300 350 5 10 15 20 25 30
Annual maximum precipitation (mm) Annual maximum precipitation (mm)

Fig. 4 The calculated skewness coefficients versus the observed counterparts for the validation period over all
ten stations (a), the observed skewness coefficients at the calibration period versus those at the validation period
(b), and the empirical cumulative distribution function (ECDF) of annual maximum precipitation for three
experiments (perfect skewness (skewness in the validation period), unchanged skewness (skewness in the
calibration period), and calculated skewness coefficients) for the wettest (Port Macquarie) and driest (Resolute
Cars) stations [(c) and (d)]

adjusted probabilities of precipitation occurrence and projected monthly mean precipitation for
any future period (Wilks 1992; Zhang 2005; Chen et al. 2012b), the estimation of the R99.9 is
crucial for calculating the skewness coefficient. The R99.9 may be estimated using the relative
change of climate model (RCM or high-resolution GCM) simulations between historical and
future periods. Even though the climate model simulations are biased, the relative change may
be reasonably projected, especially for RCM simulation, as the high resolution usually takes
into account the local climate information. This is the assumption underpinning the most
commonly used delta change downscaling methods (Mpelasoka and Chiew 2009; Chen et al.
2012b). The temporal evolution of Canadian Regional Climate Model-simulated R99.9 for
four grid points close to four stations (Ottawa, Berkerville, Brenham, and Fort Pierce) with the
30-year moving window approach as mentioned earlier is presented in Fig. 5 as an example to
illustrate the calculation of the relative change in R99.9. The R99.9 presents step jump in time
for all grid points, because this high percentile is largely determined by one extreme value. In
addition, the R99.9 fluctuates over time, showing increasing trends for most seasons and
locations and indicating the tendency of potential increases in extreme precipitation events in
future climates.
Alternatively, the R99.9 may also be estimated based on its historical trend for the near
future. Several studies presented increasing trends in extreme precipitation in different regions
of the world (Groisman et al. 2001; Burn et al. 2011; Toride et al. 2018; Du et al. 2019). If such
63 Page 14 of 19 Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

350
(a) 150
(b)
99.9th percentile precipitation (mm)

300

250
100
200

150
50
100

50

0 0
1965s 1985s 2005s 2025s 2045s 2065s 2085s 1965s 1985s 2005s 2025s 2045s 2065s 2085s

(c) 250
(d)
99.9th percentile precipitation (mm)

400
200

300 150

200 100

100 50

0 0
1965s 1985s 2005s 2025s 2045s 2065s 2085s 1965s 1985s 2005s 2025s 2045s 2065s 2085s
30-year moving window from 1951 to 2099 30-year moving window from 1951 to 2099

Spring Summer Autumn Winter

Fig. 5 The temporal evolution of Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM)-simulated R99.9 for four grid
points close to four stations (Resolute Cars, Ottawa, Berkerville, Brenham, and Fort Pierce) with a 30-year
moving window running from 1961 to 2100 in a 1-year increment

trends are supposed to continue, it may be used to estimate the R99.9 for the near future. If the
skewness coefficient is not explicitly included in a probability distribution, post-processing the
upper tail of the generated precipitation distribution may be the other solution for downscaling
extremes. For example, if extreme precipitation is known to increase more than mean
precipitation, a larger change factor may be given to the upper tail of the precipitation
distribution while keeping the total precipitation increases unchanged.

3.3 Handling nonstationarity in precipitation downscaling

Taking the earlier skewed normal distribution as an example, there are three parameters that
need to be adjusted for a nonstationary climate downscaling: mean, variance, and skewness
coefficient of daily precipitation for each calendar month. The calculation of the skewness
coefficient has been presented earlier. The mean and variance of daily precipitation can be
easily calculated using a set of analytical equations as presented in many studies (Wilks 1992;
Zhang 2005; Chen et al. 2012b).
For a proof of concept, a 100-year precipitation time series is generated using the first-
order, two-state Markov chain (for precipitation occurrence) and 3-parameter skewed normal
distribution (for precipitation amounts) for each of the 10 weather stations for the validation
period, with the adjusted parameters (P01, P11, and mean, variance, and skewness coefficient
of daily precipitation) based on the changes in mean monthly precipitation. Table 2 presents
the statistics of observed and generated daily precipitation for all 10 stations over the validation
period. Generally, the downscaling method accurately simulates the mean daily precipitation
Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63 Page 15 of 19 63

Table 2 Statistics of observed (OBS) and downscaled (DS) daily precipitation for the validation period for all ten
stations. (MWD, wet day frequency; Stdev, standard deviation, the unit is mm for precipitation)

Station Source Mean Stdev Skewness 25th 50th 75th 90th 95th 99th MWD

Armagh OBS 3.7 5.0 2.8 0.5 1.9 5.2 9.7 13.3 24.4 243
DS 4.3 6.8 3.0 0.3 1.6 5.4 11.8 17.5 31.9 233
Durham OBS 3.0 4.6 4.4 0.5 1.4 3.8 7.9 11.3 21.1 199
DS 3.3 5.7 4.3 0.3 0.9 3.9 9.1 13.6 26.4 189
Cataract Dam OBS 10.3 20.2 5.3 1.0 3.3 10.6 25.9 44.5 100.1 125
DS 11.0 26.7 5.3 0.3 0.3 9.1 33.5 57.4 132.3 130
Port Macquarie OBS 12.0 21.5 4.6 1.3 4.3 13.5 29.5 46.8 110.7 141
DS 12.9 28.0 4.6 0.3 1.2 13.2 38.3 62.6 136.9 142
Resolute Cars OBS 1.5 2.2 4.2 0.4 0.6 1.6 3.8 5.6 11.0 120
DS 1.6 2.8 4.8 0.3 0.4 1.7 4.3 6.7 13.4 117
Ottawa OBS 5.7 7.7 3.3 0.9 2.8 7.4 15.0 20.8 35.6 161
DS 6.4 7.5 3.0 1.6 4.0 8.3 15.2 21.0 35.7 143
Barkerville OBS 4.0 3.8 2.4 1.3 2.8 5.1 8.9 11.2 18.5 95
DS 3.5 4.2 2.3 0.4 2.1 4.9 8.9 12.1 20.3 110
Brenham OBS 13.1 20.1 4.4 1.8 5.6 16.5 34.1 49.0 90.2 93
DS 13.0 21.3 3.9 0.3 4.4 17.3 37.0 53.0 98.8 102
Fort Pierce OBS 10.4 13.9 2.9 1.8 5.1 13.2 26.7 38.6 61.7 113
DS 10.6 15.7 2.9 0.3 4.5 14.6 28.9 40.3 75.0 123
Campinas OBS 11.6 14.9 2.4 1.6 6.1 15.7 30.5 42.3 70.1 111
DS 12.9 14.8 2.7 2.7 9.1 17.0 29.7 41.2 70.8 105

with the mean absolute relative error (ARE) of 8.2% across 10 stations and the maximum ARE of
14.1% (Armagh). The simulation of the standard deviation of daily precipitation is slightly worse
than the mean values with the mean ARE of 18.2% and maximum ARE of 35.0% (Armagh). Since
the extreme precipitation is specifically considered, the skewness coefficients are reasonably
produced with the mean ARE of 5.9% and the maximum ARE of 14.1% (Resolute Cars). The
downscaling method slightly underestimates the lower percentiles (25th and 50th) of daily precip-
itation, while overestimates for most cases of high percentiles, probably because of the overestima-
tion of standard deviations. Though there is room for improvement, this demonstration advocates a
new approach by modifying distribution parameters to cope with possibly nonstationary changes in
the future climate. Other probability distribution functions and parameter adjustment methods may
be explored in the future. In addition, the observed mean number of wet days per year is also well
reproduced with the bias of 1 day (Port Macquarie) to 18 days (Ottawa). The largest bias observed at
the Ottawa station is due to the weak relationship between mean monthly precipitation and transition
probabilities. All of the above results indicate that the proposed downscaling approach is promising
in downscaling precipitation for non-stationary conditions represented by a contrasting validation
period. However, the weather generator-based approach assumes that both “climate states” before
and after nonstationary changes are stationary, each of which can be represented by different
probability distributions. Thus, the approach can statistically simulate the sequence and frequency
of daily precipitation of each climate state, but not the temporal variation of precipitation events
which occurs randomly as generated by the distribution.

4 Summary

Downscaling the temporal sequence and extremes in daily precipitation and handling the
nonstationarity in precipitation downscaling are usually considered as key common challenges
63 Page 16 of 19 Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63

for most statistical downscaling methods. With the review of the most commonly used
downscaling approaches, we provide our perspectives to deal with these challenges. The
performance of the proposed methods is demonstrated for a proof of concept using 10 stations
located across the globe by dividing long historical periods into contrasting calibration and
validation periods to deliberately represent the nonstationarity of future precipitation. Using a
stochastic process of the Markov chain to generate precipitation occurrences is an effective
approach to downscale the temporal sequence of daily precipitation. The adjustment of
Markov chain parameters can be achieved by linking them to mean monthly precipitation,
as a strong correlation exists between them. Since the extreme precipitation events are highly
correlated to the skewness coefficient of a probability distribution, downscaling precipitation
extremes turns into adjusting the skewness coefficient of a probability distribution. The
nonstationary future precipitation means that the distribution of precipitation in a future period
is different from that in the historical period. The use of a distribution with time-variant
parameters would be an effective way to deal with the nonstationarity problem. By adjusting
parameters of a probability distribution according to climate change signals projected by
climate models, a new distribution is produced to represent the nonstationarity of future
climate conditions.
Even though a number of methods have been developed recently by taking into account
more complicated components of statistical downscaling methods such as the inter-variable
and inter-station correlations, solving the aforementioned challenges can be considered as the
first most important phase for statistical downscaling. The second phase may focus on spatial
dependences across multiple locations and among variables as well as downscaling of sub-
daily precipitation events, as proposed on CORDEX-ESD midterm plans. We only proposed
potential directions to solve these challenges in the first phase. More datasets, especially on the
global scale, still need to be used to test the solutions proposed in this study.

Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/
10.1007/s10584-021-03083-3.

Acknowledgements The authors like to express great appreciation to Dr. Bofu Yu of Griffith University,
Australia, for providing daily precipitation data of the Cataract Dam and Port Macquarie stations; to Dr. Alfredo
Borges de Campos of Universidade Federal de Goias, Brazil, for data of the Campinas station; and to Dr. Donal
Mullan of Queen’s University Belfast, UK, for data of the Armagh and Durham stations.
Code availability The custom code was only used for calculations, and it can be provided by contacting the
corresponding author.

Author contribution JC and XJZ conceived the original idea, designed the methodology, and collected the
data. JC developed the model code and performed the simulations. JC and XJZ contributed to the interpretation
of results. JC wrote the paper, and XJZ revised the paper.

Funding This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
52079093; 51779176), the Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 2020CFA100),
and the Overseas Expertise Introduction Project for Discipline Innovation (111 Project) funded by the Ministry of
Education and State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs P.R. China (Grant No. B18037).

Data availability The data for ten stations are not publicly available but can be requested by contacting the
corresponding author.
Climatic Change (2021) 165: 63 Page 17 of 19 63

Declarations

Conflict of interest The authors declare no competing interests.

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