WRF模式对中国夏季降水的动力降尺度模拟研究

采用NCEP的FNL再分析资料驱动WRF模式,对中国10 a(2000—2009年)夏季降水进行双重动力降尺度(双重嵌套)模拟,将子、母区域模拟结果和观测进行对比,以检验双重动力降尺度对中国夏季降水模拟的"增值"能力。结果表明:单重动力降尺度(单重嵌套)方法能较好模拟出中国10 a夏季平均降水的空间分布,对季风雨带"北跳"特征模拟较好,但模拟降水具有系统性正偏差。在母区域的强迫下,双重动力降尺度模拟的降水分布与单重动力降尺度相比,没有发生根本性变化。但由于子区域的分辨率要高于母区域,双重动力降尺度比单重动力降尺度能提供更多有价值的降水细节。双重动力降尺度的这种"增值"能力存在地域依赖性,在华南地区和江淮地区,双重动力降尺度模拟出的降水分布、量值和逐日演变都要好于单重动力降尺度。但在华北地区,双重动力降尺度没有表现出明显的"增值"。     

Dynamical downscaling of IPSL-CM5 CMIP5 historical simulations over the Mediterranean: benefits on the representation of regional surface winds and cyclogenesis

The Mediterranean region is identified as one of the two main hot-spots of climate change and also known to have the highest concentration of cyclones in the world. These atmospheric features contribute significantly to the regional climate but they are not reproduced by the Atmosphere–Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCM), due to their coarse horizontal resolution, which have recently been run in the frame of the 5th Climate Model Intercomparison Project. This article investigates the benefit of dynamically downscaling the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) AOGCM (IPSL-CM5) historical simulation by the weather and research forecasting (WRF) for the representation of the Mediterranean surface winds and cyclonic activity. Indeed, when considering IPSL-CM5 atmospheric fields, the dramatic underestimation of the cyclonic activity in the most cyclogenetic region of the world jeopardizes our ability to investigate in-depth the Mediterranean regional climate and trend in the context of global change. The WRF model shows remarkable skill to reproduce regional cyclogenesis. Indeed, cyclones occurrence is quasi-absent in IPSL-CM5 data but when applying dynamical downscaling their spatial–temporal variability is very close to the re-analysis. This is a clear benefit of dynamical downscaling in regions of strong topographic forcing. This “steady” source of forcing allows the production of lee cyclogenesis and the development of strong cyclones, whatever the quality of the large-scale circulation provided at the WRF’s boundaries by IPSL-CM5. However, dynamical downscaling still presents disadvantages as for instance the fact that large-scale inaccurate features of the IPSL-CM5 regional circulation are replicated by WRF due to the boundary controlled (small domain) simulation. The advantages and disadvantages of dynamical downscaling are thoroughly discussed in this paper revealing its importance for climate research, especially in the context of future scenarios and wind impacts.     

Dynamical Downscaling of Temperature and Precipitation Extremes in China under Current and Future Climates

Climate changes over China from the present (1996–2005) to the future (2046–2055) under Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 (RCP4.5) and Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 (RCP8.5) scenarios are projected using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, version 3.7.1. The WRF model was driven by the Global 6-Hourly Bias-corrected Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5 (CMIP5), Community Earth System Model dataset over China with a resolution of 30?km. The results demonstrate that WRF downscaling generally simulates more reliable spatial distributions of surface air temperature and precipitation in China with higher spatial pattern correlations and closer in magnitude to the Community Climate System Model, version 4.0, simulation results, especially near mountain ranges. The WRF projections for temperature and precipitation for the future under the two emission scenarios are compared with the present simulation. Generally stronger warming, both in mean temperature and extreme statistics, is produced by WRF-RCP8.5 than by WRF-RCP4.5. The projections for precipitation changes are more varied with season and region for both scenarios.     

Evaluation of a WRF dynamical downscaling simulation over California

This paper presents results from a 40 year Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) based dynamical downscaling experiment performed at 12 km horizontal grid spacing, centered on the state of California, and forced by a 1° × 1.25° finite-volume current-climate Community Climate System Model ver. 3 (CCSM3) simulation. In-depth comparisons between modeled and observed regional-average precipitation, 2 m temperature, and snowpack are performed. The regional model reproduces the spatial distribution of precipitation quite well, but substantially overestimates rainfall along windward slopes. This is due to strong overprediction of precipitation intensity; precipitation frequency is actually underpredicted by the model. Moisture fluxes impinging on the coast seem to be well-represented over California, implying that precipitation bias is caused by processes internal to WRF. Positive-definite moisture advection and use of the Grell cumulus parameterization result in some decrease in precipitation bias, but other sources are needed to explain the full bias magnitude. Surface temperature is well simulated in all seasons except summer, when overly-dry soil moisture results in a several degree warm bias in both CCSM3 and WRF. Additionally, coastal temperatures appear to be too warm due to a coastal sea surface temperature bias inherited from CCSM3. Modeled snowfall/snowmelt agrees quite well with observations, but snow water equivalent is found to be much too low due to monthly reinitialization of all regional model fields from CCSM3 values.     

利用区域气候模式对我国南方百年气温和降水的动力降尺度模拟

本文采用NCAR的WRF3.5.1模式,以NOAA的20世纪再分析资料作为区域气候模式的初始场和侧边界场,对东亚地区进行了百年以上(1900~2010年)尺度、水平分辨率为50 km的动力降尺度数值模拟试验。通过与观测气候资料的对比,分析了驱动场(20世纪再分析资料)和区域气候模式对我国南方地区近50年(1961~2010年)气温和降水的气候平均态的模拟能力。结果表明:经过动力降尺度的区域气候模式试验结果能更好地模拟我国南方地区气温气候平均态和季节循环。WRF模式模拟的气温与观测的气温的空间相关系数均在0.97以上。年平均和夏季,WRF模式模拟的气温与观测的气温的偏差大多介于-1°C到+1°C之间。对于降水,WRF模式显著提高了我国南方降水的模拟能力。和驱动场相比,WRF模式模拟的降水与观测的偏差明显减小。夏季,WRF模式模拟的降水空间相关系数在0.5以上。由此延伸至对近百年我国南方地区三个子区域(华南地区、江淮地区和西南地区)四个时段(1914~1942年、1943~1971年、1972~2000年和2001~2010年)的分析,结果表明区域气候模式动力降尺度的结果在区域平均的气温和降水的模拟数值上与观测比较接近,夏季模拟能力有明显的提高,冬季存在气温模拟偏低的误差。对气温趋势分析表明,在20世纪40年代以后的两个时间段,区域气候模式明显提高了气温变化线性趋势的模拟性能。     

Projected Climate Change in the Northwestern Arid Regions of China: An Ensemble of Regional Climate Model Simulations

The projected temperature and precipitationchange under different emissions scenarios using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 models over the northwestern arid regions of China(NWAC) were analyzed using the ensemble of three high-resolution dynamical downscaling simulations: the simulation of the Regional Climate Model version 4.0(Reg CM4) forced by the Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model version 1.1(BCC_CSM1.1); the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 3 regional climate model(Had GEM3-RA) forced by the Atmosphere-Ocean coupled Had GEM version 2(Had GEM2-AO); and the Weather Research and Forecasting(WRF) model forced by the Norwegian community Earth System Model(Nor ESM1-M). Model validation indicated that the multimodel simulations reproduce the spatial and temporal distribution of temperature and precipitation well. The temperature is projected to increase over NWAC under both the 4.5 and 8.5 Representative Concentration Pathways scenarios(RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively) in the middle of the 21 st century, but the warming trend is larger under the RCP8.5 scenario. Precipitation shows a significant increasing trend in spring and winter under both RCP4.5 and RCP8.5; but in summer, precipitation is projected to decrease in the Tarim Basin and Junggar Basin. The regional averaged temperature and precipitation show increasing trends in the future over NWAC; meanwhile, the large variability of the winter mean temperature and precipitation may induce more extreme cold events and intense snowfall events in these regions in the future.     

基于MIROC/WRF嵌套模式的中国气候降尺度模拟

开展了基于嵌套的全球模式MIROC和区域气候模式WRF的动力降尺度模拟试验,检验该模式对中国气候的模拟性能,得到以下结论:全球气候模式MIROC和WRF都能较好地模拟出中国年平均地表气温(下文简称气温)分布。WRF模式对气温场的描述更为细致,模拟出了四川盆地高温和中国最北方区域的低温。两个模式总体上对南方降水模拟好于北方地区,东部地区好于西部地区。MIROC模式模拟的年平均和各季节降水与观测的 空间相关系数在0.79～0.83之间,表明它对降水的模拟较好。WRF模式模拟的降水空间分布好于MIROC模式。MIROC模式在青藏高原东南侧存在虚假降水中心,WRF能有效改进该地区降水的模拟。两个模式对年平均气温和降水年际变率的模拟能力均较差,WRF模式相对MIROC模式有一定改进。     

Comparison of a very-fine-resolution GCM with RCM dynamical downscaling in simulating climate in China

Regional climate simulation can generally be improved by using an RCM nested within a coarser-resolution GCM. However, whether or not it can also be improved by the direct use of a state-of-the-art GCM with very fine resolution, close to that of an RCM, and, if so, which is the better approach, are open questions. These questions are important for understanding and using these two kinds of simulation approaches, but have not yet been investigated. Accordingly, the present reported work compared simulation results over China from a very-fine-resolution GCM (VFRGCM) and from RCM dynamical downscaling. The results showed that: (1) The VFRGCM reproduces the climatologies and trends of both air temperature and precipitation, as well as inter-monthly variations of air temperature in terms of spatial pattern and amount, closer to observations than the coarse-resolution version of the GCM. This is not the case, however, for the inter-monthly variations of precipitation. (2) The VFRGCM captures the climatology, trend, and inter-monthly variation of air temperature, as well as the trend in precipitation, more reasonably than the RCM dynamical downscaling method. (3) The RCM dynamical downscaling method performs better than the VFRGCM in terms of the climatology and inter-monthly variation of precipitation. Overall, the results suggest that VFRGCMs possess great potential with regard to their application in climate simulation in the future, and the RCM dynamical downscaling method is still dominant in terms of regional precipitation simulation.     

Validating a regional climate model’s downscaling ability for East Asian summer monsoonal interannual variability

Performance of a regional climate model (RCM), WRF, for downscaling East Asian summer season climate is investigated based on 11-summer integrations associated with different climate conditions with reanalysis data as the lateral boundary conditions. It is found that while the RCM is essentially unable to improve large-scale circulation patterns in the upper troposphere for most years, it is able to simulate better lower-level meridional moisture transport in the East Asian summer monsoon. For precipitation downscaling, the RCM produces more realistic magnitude of the interannual variation in most areas of East Asia than that in the reanalysis. Furthermore, the RCM significantly improves the spatial pattern of summer rainfall over dry inland areas and mountainous areas, such as Mongolia and the Tibetan Plateau. Meanwhile, it reduces the wet bias over southeast China. Over Mongolia, however, the performance of precipitation downscaling strongly depends on the year: the WRF is skillful for normal and wet years, but not for dry years, which suggests that land surface processes play an important role in downscaling ability. Over the dry area of North China, the WRF shows the worst performance. Additional sensitivity experiments testing land effects in downscaling suggest the initial soil moisture condition and representation of land surface processes with different schemes are sources of uncertainty for precipitation downscaling. Correction of initial soil moisture using the climatology dataset from GSWP-2 is a useful approach to robustly reducing wet bias in inland areas as well as to improve spatial distribution of precipitation. Despite the improvement on RCM downscaling, regional analyses reveal that accurate simulation of precipitation over East China, where the precipitation pattern is strongly influenced by the activity of the Meiyu/Baiu rainfall band, is difficult. Since the location of the rainfall band is closely associated with both lower-level meridional moisture transport and upper-level circulation structures, it is necessary to have realistic upper-air circulation patterns in the RCM as well as lower-level moisture transport in order to improve the circulation-associated convective rainfall band in East Asia.     

Precipitation and temperature space–time variability and extremes in the Mediterranean region: evaluation of dynamical and statistical downscaling methods

This study evaluates how statistical and dynamical downscaling models as well as combined approach perform in retrieving the space–time variability of near-surface temperature and rainfall, as well as their extremes, over the whole Mediterranean region. The dynamical downscaling model used in this study is the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with varying land-surface models and resolutions (20 and 50 km) and the statistical tool is the Cumulative Distribution Function-transform (CDF-t). To achieve a spatially resolved downscaling over the Mediterranean basin, the European Climate Assessment and Dataset (ECA&D) gridded dataset is used for calibration and evaluation of the downscaling models. In the frame of HyMeX and MED-CORDEX international programs, the downscaling is performed on ERA-I reanalysis over the 1989–2008 period. The results show that despite local calibration, CDF-t produces more accurate spatial variability of near-surface temperature and rainfall with respect to ECA&D than WRF which solves the three-dimensional equation of conservation. This first suggests that at 20–50 km resolutions, these three-dimensional processes only weakly contribute to the local value of temperature and precipitation with respect to local one-dimensional processes. Calibration of CDF-t at each individual grid point is thus sufficient to reproduce accurately the spatial pattern. A second explanation is the use of gridded data such as ECA&D which smoothes in part the horizontal variability after data interpolation and damps the added value of dynamical downscaling. This explains partly the absence of added-value of the 2-stage downscaling approach which combines statistical and dynamical downscaling models. The temporal variability of statistically downscaled temperature and rainfall is finally strongly driven by the temporal variability of its forcing (here ERA-Interim or WRF simulations). CDF-t is thus efficient as a bias correction tool but does not show any added-value regarding the time variability of the downscaled field. Finally, the quality of the reference observation dataset is a key issue. Comparison of CDF-t calibrated with ECA&D dataset and WRF simulations to local measurements from weather stations not assimilated in ECA&D, shows that the temporal variability of the downscaled data with respect to the local observations is closer to the local measurements than to ECA&D data. This highlights the strong added-value of dynamical downscaling which improves the temporal variability of the atmospheric dynamics with regard to the driving model. This article highlights the benefits and inconveniences emerging from the use of both downscaling techniques for climate research. Our goal is to contribute to the discussion on the use of downscaling tools to assess the impact of climate change on regional scales.     

Simulating the impact of the large-scale circulation on the 2-m temperature and precipitation climatology

The impact of the simulated large-scale atmospheric circulation on the regional climate is examined using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model as a regional climate model. The purpose is to understand the potential need for interior grid nudging for dynamical downscaling of global climate model (GCM) output for air quality applications under a changing climate. In this study we downscale the NCEP-Department of Energy Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP-II) Reanalysis using three continuous 20-year WRF simulations: one simulation without interior grid nudging and two using different interior grid nudging methods. The biases in 2-m temperature and precipitation for the simulation without interior grid nudging are unreasonably large with respect to the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) over the eastern half of the contiguous United States (CONUS) during the summer when air quality concerns are most relevant. This study examines how these differences arise from errors in predicting the large-scale atmospheric circulation. It is demonstrated that the Bermuda high, which strongly influences the regional climate for much of the eastern half of the CONUS during the summer, is poorly simulated without interior grid nudging. In particular, two summers when the Bermuda high was west (1993) and east (2003) of its climatological position are chosen to illustrate problems in the large-scale atmospheric circulation anomalies. For both summers, WRF without interior grid nudging fails to simulate the placement of the upper-level anticyclonic (1993) and cyclonic (2003) circulation anomalies. The displacement of the large-scale circulation impacts the lower atmosphere moisture transport and precipitable water, affecting the convective environment and precipitation. Using interior grid nudging improves the large-scale circulation aloft and moisture transport/precipitable water anomalies, thereby improving the simulated 2-m temperature and precipitation. The results demonstrate that constraining the RCM to the large-scale features in the driving fields improves the overall accuracy of the simulated regional climate, and suggest that in the absence of such a constraint, the RCM will likely misrepresent important large-scale shifts in the atmospheric circulation under a future climate.     

Evaluation of a climate simulation in Europe based on the WRF–NOAH model system: precipitation in Germany

The Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model with its land surface model NOAH was set up and applied as regional climate model over Europe. It was forced with the latest ERA-interim reanalysis data from 1989 to 2008 and operated with 0.33° and 0.11° resolution. This study focuses on the verification of monthly and seasonal mean precipitation over Germany, where a high quality precipitation dataset of the German Weather Service is available. In particular, the precipitation is studied in the orographic terrain of southwestern Germany and the dry lowlands of northeastern Germany. In both regions precipitation data is very important for end users such as hydrologists and farmers. Both WRF simulations show a systematic positive precipitation bias not apparent in ERA-interim and an overestimation of wet day frequency. The downscaling experiment improved the annual cycle of the precipitation intensity, which is underestimated by ERA-interim. Normalized Taylor diagrams, i.e., those discarding the systematic bias by normalizing the quantities, demonstrate that downscaling with WRF provides a better spatial distribution than the ERA interim precipitation analyses in southwestern Germany and most of the whole of Germany but degrades the results for northeastern Germany. At the applied model resolution of 0.11°, WRF shows typical systematic errors of RCMs in orographic terrain such as the windward–lee effect. A convection permitting case study set up for summer 2007 improved the precipitation simulations with respect to the location of precipitation maxima in the mountainous regions and the spatial correlation of precipitation. This result indicates the high value of regional climate simulations on the convection-permitting scale.     

FGOALS/RegCM动力降尺度对南亚夏季气候变化的预估

基于CORDEX计划的试验设计,利用区域气候模式Reg CM3对全球模式FGOALS-g2在RCP8.5情景下的预估结果进行动力降尺度,预估了南亚地区未来近期(2016~2035年)和远期(2080~2099年)的夏季气候变化特征。结果显示,未来两个时段的气候变化空间分布类似,只是远期的变化幅度更大。具体表现为:高低空急流减弱,低空急流中心向北移动。南亚地区整体降水减少,但其北部降水显著增加。降水变化的空间分布主要受降水频率的控制,且降水频率随强度分布的变化表现出明显的地域差异。降水的未来变化特征与水汽输送的变化有密切联系。在区域模式中,受低空急流减弱和北移的影响,水汽输送减弱,对应降水减少。而在全球模式中,虽然季风环流也在减弱,但可降水量增加起主导作用,使得预估的水汽输送增强、降水量增加。     

华东地区极端降水动力降尺度模拟及未来预估

利用CMIP5（Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5）数据集中的全球模式IPSL-CM5A-LR及其嵌套的区域气候模式WRF（Weather Research and Forecasting）,分别评估了模式对1981~2000中国华东区域极端降水指标的模拟能力,并讨论了RCP8.5排放情景下21世纪中期（2041~2060年）中国华东极端降水指标的变化特征。相比驱动场全球气候模式,WRF模式更好地再现了各个极端指数空间分布及各子区域降水年周期变化。在模拟区域气候特点方面,WRF模拟结果有所改进,并在弥补全球模式对小雨日过多模拟的缺陷起到了明显的作用。21世纪中期,华东区域的降水将呈现明显的极端化趋势。WRF模拟结果显示年总降雨量、年大雨日数、平均日降雨强度在华东大部分区域的增幅在20%以上;年极端降雨天数、连续5 d最大降水量的增幅在华东北部部分区域分别超过了50%和35%,同时最长续干旱日在华东区域全面增加;且变化显著的格点主要位于增加幅度较大的区域。未来华东区域会出现强降水事件和干旱事件同时增加的情况,降水呈现明显的极端化趋势,且华东北部极端化强于华东南部。     

Regional climate model projections for the State of Washington

Global climate models do not have sufficient spatial resolution to represent the atmospheric and land surface processes that determine the unique regional climate of the State of Washington. Regional climate models explicitly simulate the interactions between the large-scale weather patterns simulated by a global model and the local terrain. We have performed two 100-year regional climate simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). One simulation is forced by the NCAR Community Climate System Model version 3 (CCSM3) and the second is forced by a simulation of the Max Plank Institute, Hamburg, global model (ECHAM5). The mesoscale simulations produce regional changes in snow cover, cloudiness, and circulation patterns associated with interactions between the large-scale climate change and the regional topography and land-water contrasts. These changes substantially alter the temperature and precipitation trends over the region relative to the global model result or statistical downscaling. To illustrate this effect, we analyze the changes from the current climate (1970–1999) to the mid twenty-first century (2030–2059). Changes in seasonal-mean temperature, precipitation, and snowpack are presented. Several climatological indices of extreme daily weather are also presented: precipitation intensity, fraction of precipitation occurring in extreme daily events, heat wave frequency, growing season length, and frequency of warm nights. Despite somewhat different changes in seasonal precipitation and temperature from the two regional simulations, consistent results for changes in snowpack and extreme precipitation are found in both simulations.     

Field significance of performance measures in the context of regional climate model evaluation. Part 2: precipitation

A new approach for rigorous spatial analysis of the downscaling performance of regional climate model (RCM) simulations is introduced. It is based on a multiple comparison of the local tests at the grid cells and is also known as ‘field’ or ‘global’ significance. The block length for the local resampling tests is precisely determined to adequately account for the time series structure. New performance measures for estimating the added value of downscaled data relative to the large-scale forcing fields are developed. The methodology is exemplarily applied to a standard EURO-CORDEX hindcast simulation with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model coupled with the land surface model NOAH at 0.11 ^° grid resolution. Daily precipitation climatology for the 1990–2009 period is analysed for Germany for winter and summer in comparison with high-resolution gridded observations from the German Weather Service. The field significance test controls the proportion of falsely rejected local tests in a meaningful way and is robust to spatial dependence. Hence, the spatial patterns of the statistically significant local tests are also meaningful. We interpret them from a process-oriented perspective. While the downscaled precipitation distributions are statistically indistinguishable from the observed ones in most regions in summer, the biases of some distribution characteristics are significant over large areas in winter. WRF-NOAH generates appropriate stationary fine-scale climate features in the daily precipitation field over regions of complex topography in both seasons and appropriate transient fine-scale features almost everywhere in summer. As the added value of global climate model (GCM)-driven simulations cannot be smaller than this perfect-boundary estimate, this work demonstrates in a rigorous manner the clear additional value of dynamical downscaling over global climate simulations. The evaluation methodology has a broad spectrum of applicability as it is distribution-free, robust to spatial dependence, and accounts for time series structure.     

Impact of the lateral boundary conditions resolution on dynamical downscaling of precipitation in mediterranean spain

Conclusions on the General Circulation Models (GCMs) horizontal and temporal optimum resolution for dynamical downscaling of rainfall in Mediterranean Spain are derived based on the statistical analysis of mesoscale simulations of past events. These events correspond to the 165 heavy rainfall days during 1984–1993, which are simulated with the HIRLAM mesoscale model. The model is nested within the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts atmospheric grid analyses. We represent the spectrum of GCMs resolutions currently applied in climate change research by using varying horizontal and temporal resolutions of these analyses. Three sets of simulations are designed using input data with 1°, 2° and 3° horizontal resolutions (available at 6 h intervals), and three additional sets are designed using 1° horizontal resolution with less frequent boundary conditions updated every 12, 24 and 48 h. The quality of the daily rainfall forecasts is verified against rain-gauge observations using correlation and root mean square error analysis as well as Relative Operating Characteristic curves. Spatial distribution of average precipitation fields are also computed and verified against observations. For the whole Mediterranean Spain, model skill is not appreciably improved when using enhanced spatial input data, suggesting that there is no clear benefit in using high resolution data from General Circulation Model for the regional downscaling of precipitation under the conditions tested. However, significant differences are found in verification scores when boundary conditions are interpolated less frequently than 12 h apart. The analysis is particularized for six major rain bearing flow regimes that affect the region, and differences in model performance are found among the flow types, with slightly better forecasts for Atlantic and cold front passage flows. A remarkable spatial variability in forecast quality is found in the domain, with an overall tendency for higher Relative Operating Characteristic scores in the west and north of the region and over highlands, where the two previous flow regimes are quite influential. The findings of this study could be of help for dynamical downscaling design applied to future precipitation scenarios in the region, as well as to better establish confidence intervals on its results.     

Extreme precipitation in WRF during the Newcastle East Coast Low of 2007

In the context of regional downscaling, we study the representation of extreme precipitation in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, focusing on a major event that occurred on the 8^th of June 2007 along the coast of eastern Australia (abbreviated “Newy”). This was one of the strongest extra-tropical low-pressure systems off eastern Australia in the last 30 years and was one of several storms comprising a test bed for the WRF ensemble that underpins the regional climate change projections for eastern Australia (New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory Regional Climate Modelling Project, NARCliM). Newy provides an informative case study for examining precipitation extremes as simulated by WRF set up for regional downscaling. Here, simulations from the NARCliM physics ensemble of Newy available at ～10 km grid spacing are used. Extremes and spatio-temporal characteristics are examined using land-based daily and hourly precipitation totals, with a particular focus on hourly accumulations. Of the different physics schemes assessed, the cumulus and the boundary layer schemes cause the largest differences. Although the Betts-Miller-Janjic cumulus scheme produces better rainfall totals over the entire storm, the Kain-Fritsch cumulus scheme promotes higher and more realistic hourly extreme precipitation totals. Analysis indicates the Kain-Fritsch runs are correlated with larger resolved grid-scale vertical moisture fluxes, which are produced through the influence of parameterized convection on the larger-scale circulation and the subsequent convergence and ascent of moisture. Results show that WRF qualitatively reproduces spatial precipitation patterns during the storm, albeit with some errors in timing. This case study indicates that whilst regional climate simulations of an extreme event such as Newy in WRF may be well represented at daily scales irrespective of the physics scheme used, the representation at hourly scales is likely to be physics scheme dependent.     

Potential for added value to downscaled climate extremes over Korea by increased resolution of a regional climate model

This study estimates the potential for added value in dynamical downscaling by increasing the spatial resolution of the regional climate model (RCM) over Korea. The Global/Regional Integrated Model System—Regional Model Program with two different resolutions is employed as the RCM. Large-scale forcing is given by a historical simulation of a global climate model, namely the Hadley Center Global Environmental Model version 2. As a standard procedure, the reproducibility of the RCM results for the present climate is evaluated against the reanalysis and observation datasets. It is confirmed that the RCM adequately reproduces the major characteristics of the observed atmospheric conditions and the increased resolution of the RCM contributes to the improvement of simulated surface variables including precipitation and temperature. For the added-value assessment, the interannual and daily variabilities of precipitation, temperature are compared between the different resolution RCM experiments. It is distinctly shown that variabilities are additionally described as the spatial resolution becomes higher. The increased resolution also contributes to capture the extreme weather conditions, such as heavy rainfall events and sweltering days. The enhanced added value is more evident for the precipitation than for the temperature, which stands for a usefulness of the high-resolution RCM especially for diagnosing potential hazard related to heavy rainfall. The results of this study assure the effectiveness of increasing spatial resolution of the RCM for detecting climate extremes and also provide credibility to the current climate simulation for future projection studies.