precipitation distribution in more detail. Precipitation has received contribution
from local orographic effects which have been presented in a
coarse resolution. The 20-km resolution Eta model simulations were
the highest resolution of future climate change projections available at
three-hour interval for the region. This higher temporal frequency is
suitable to capture heavy rainfall rates. In addition, the approximately
horizontal surfaces of the vertical coordinate of the Eta model is suitable
to resolve the air circulation around steep mountains such as the Andes
Cordillera, as shown by Figueroa et al. (1995). The simulations of the
present climate produced by the 20-km resolution Eta-HadCM3 have
shown to capture better the extreme rainfall values, as improvement
over the coarser available dataset. This downscaling at 20-km has
been applied to assess the impacts of climate change on the Brazilian
hydropower production (Lima et al., 2014).