Statistical Modeling of CMIP5 Projected Changes in Extreme Wet Spells over China in the Late 21st Century

The observed intensity, frequency, and duration（IFD） of summer wet spells, defined here as extreme events with one or more consecutive days in which daily precipitation exceeds a given threshold（the 95th percentile）, and their future changes in RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 in the late 21st century over China, are investigated by using the wet spell model（WSM） and by extending the point process approach to extreme value analysis. Wet spell intensity is modeled by a conditional generalized Pareto distribution, frequency by a Poisson distribution, and duration by a geometric distribution, respectively. The WSM is able to realistically model summer extreme rainfall spells during 1961–2005, as verified with observations at 553 stations throughout China. To minimize the impact of systematic biases over China in the global climate models（GCMs） of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5（CMIP5）, five best GCMs are selected based on their performance to reproduce observed wet spell IFD and average precipitation during the historical period. Furthermore, a quantile–quantile scaling correction procedure is proposed and applied to produce ensemble projections of wet spell IFD and corresponding probability distributions. The results show that in the late 21st century, most of China will experience more extreme rainfall and less low-intensity rainfall. The intensity and frequency of wet spells are projected to increase considerably, while the duration of wet spells will increase but to a much less extent. The IFD changes in RCP8.5 are in general much larger than those in RCP4.5.

Damage Layer Evolution of a Breakwater Under Seawater Attack: Testing and Modeling

This paper presents experimental and theoretical methods to study the damage layer evolution of a breakwater made with concrete hollow squares in marine environment.Wetting time was directly related to the performance degradation of the breakwater by observation.The thickness of damage layer was detected by means of ultrasonic testing.Meanwhile,some samples drilled from concrete hollow squares were analyzed by SEM and XRD in order to illustrate the damage mechanism.Subsequently,a theoretical model containing wetting time ratio was established to simulate the damage layer evolution based on Fick’s second law,which could be suggested to predict the service life of concrete structures in marine environment.