Abstract: To determine the efficiency of precipitation generated by CLIGEN in North China,precipitation records from 15 weather stations from 1951 to 2008 in North China and 150 years of CLIGEN generated data were used to evaluate the CLIGEN weather generator. Results showed that the means of annual and daily precipitation amount and days of precipitation were all well generated by CLIGEN,whereas extremes of precipitation were not adequately preserved. Mean Absolute Relative Errors (MARE)of annual and daily maximum precipitation were both higher compared with that of annual and daily average precipitation. Nonparametric tests indicated CLIGEN had the ability to simulate probability distribution of annual and daily precipitation. In general,CLIGEN could generate statistical characteristics of average annual and daily precipitation,as well as variability of precipitation.

Key words: CLIGEN, CLIGEN, Weather generator, Precipitation, Model evaluation, North China