Climate simulations based on a different-grid nested and coupled model

An atmosphere-vegetation interaction model (AVIM) has been coupled with a nine-layer General Circulation Model (GCM) of Institute of Atmospheic Physics / State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (IAP/LASG), which is rhomboidally truncated at zonal wave number 15, to simulate global climatic mean states. AVIM is a model having inter-feedback between land surface processes and eco-physiological processes on land. As the first step to couple land with atmosphere completely, the physiological processes are fixed and only the physical part (generally named the SVAT (soil-vegetation-atmosphere-transfer scheme) model) of AVIM is nested into IAP/LASG L9R15 GCM. The ocean part of GCM is prescribed and its monthly sea surface temperature (SST) is the climatic mean value. With respect to the low resolution of GCM, i.e., each grid cell having longitude 7.5° and latitude 4.5°, the vegetation is given a high resolution of 1.5° by 1.5° to nest and couple the fine grid cells of land with the coarse grid cells of atmosphere. The coupling model has been integrated for 15years and its last ten-year mean of outputs was chosen for analysis.Compared with observed data and NCEP reanalysis, the coupled model simulates the main characteristics of global atmospheric circulation and the fields of temperature and moisture. In particular, the simulated precipitation and surface air temperature have sound results. The work creates a solid base on coupling climate models with the biosphere.