Modeling the hydroclimatology of the midwestern United States. Part 2: future climate

An ensemble of six 22-year numerical experiments was conducted to quantify the response of soil moisture to multiple climate change scenarios over the American Midwest. Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3) was run using two surface physics schemes: Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) and Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme 1e (BATS1e); and two convective closure assumptions: Fritsch and Chappell and Arakawa and Schubert. Experiments were forced with a surrogate climate change scenario constructed using the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Department of Energy Reanalysis 2 dataset and the ECHAM5 A1B climate change scenario. RegCM3-IBIS and RegCM3-BATS1e simulate increased two-meter air temperature and downward longwave radiation throughout the year under both climate change scenarios. While differences in shortwave radiation are relatively small; some model configurations and climate change scenarios produce additional precipitation, evapotranspiration, and total runoff during the spring and summer. Soil moisture is unchanged or increased throughout the growing season as enhanced rainfall offsets greater evaporative demand. Negligible drying in root zone soil moisture is found in all climate change experiments conducted, regardless of surface physics scheme, boundary conditions, or convective closure assumption.     

The coupling of the Common Land Model (CLM0) to a regional climate model (RegCM)

Summary We replace the existing land surface parameterization scheme, the Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS), in a regional climate model (RegCM) with the newly developed Common Land Model (CLM0). The main improvements of CLM0 include a detailed 10-layer soil model, the distinction between soil ice and water phases, a linked photosynthesis-stomatal conductance model, a multilayer snow model, and an improved runoff parameterization. We compare the performance of CLM0 and BATS as coupled to the RegCM in a one year simulation over East Asia. We find that the RegCM/CLM0 improves the winter cold bias present in the RegCM/BATS simulation. With respect to the surface energy balance, lower CLM0 albedos allow the absorption of more solar radiation at the surface. CLM0 tends to simulate higher sensible heat and lower latent heat fluxes than its BATS counterpart. The surface water balance also changes considerably between the two land surface schemes. Compared to BATS, CLM0 precipitation is reduced overall and surface runoff is increased, thereby allowing less water to enter the soil column. Evapotranspiration is lower in CLM0 due to lower ground evaporation, which leads to a wetter surface soil in CLM0 in spite of less precipitation input. However, transpiration is greater in CLM0 than BATS, which has an overall effect of less surface storage during the summertime. Comparison with station observations indicates that CLM0 tends to improve the simulation of root zone soil water content compared to BATS. Another pronounced difference between the two schemes is that CLM0 produces lower snow amounts than BATS because of different snow models and warmer CLM0 temperatures. In this case, BATS snow cover amounts are more in line with observations. Overall, except for the snow amounts, CLM0 appears to improve the RegCM simulation of the surface energy and water budgets compared to BATS.     

Incorporating groundwater dynamics and surface/subsurface runoff mechanisms in regional climate modeling over river basins in China

To improve the capability of numerical modeling of climate-groundwater interactions, a groundwater component and new surface/subsurface runoff schemes were incorporated into the regional climate model RegCM3, renamed RegCM3_Hydro. 20－year simulations from both models were used to investigate the effects of groundwater dynamics and surface/subsurface runoff parameterizations on regional climate over seven river basins in China. A comparison of results shows that RegCM3_Hydro reduced the positive biases of annual and summer (June, July, August) precipitation over six river basins, while it slightly increased the bias over the Huaihe River Basin in eastern China. RegCM3_Hydro also reduced the cold bias of surface air temperature from RegCM3 across years, especially for the Haihe and the Huaihe river basins, with significant bias reductions of 0.80C and 0.88C, respectively. The spatial distribution and seasonal variations of water table depth were also well captured. With the new surface and subsurface runoff schemes, RegCM3_Hydro increased annual surface runoff by 0.11－0.62 mm d－1 over the seven basins. Though previous studies found that incorporating a groundwater component tends to increase soil moisture due to the consideration of upward groundwater recharge, our present work shows that the modified runoff schemes cause less infiltration, which outweigh the recharge from groundwater and result in drier soil, and consequently cause less latent heat and more sensible heat over most of the basins.     

Sensitivity studies of the RegCM3 simulation of summer precipitation, temperature and local wind field in the Caribbean Region

Summary We present a preliminary evaluation of the performance of three different cumulus parameterization schemes in the ICTP Regional Climate Model RegCM3 for two overlapping domains (termed “big” and “small”) and horizontal resolutions (50 and 25 km) in the Caribbean area during the summer (July–August–September). The cumulus parameterizations were the Grell scheme with two closure assumptions (Arakawa–Schubert and Fritsch–Chappell) and the Anthes-Kuo scheme. An additional sensitivity test was performed by comparing two different flux parameterization schemes over the ocean (Zeng and BATS). There is a systematic underestimation of air temperature and precipitation when compared with analyzed data over the big domain area. Greater (∼2 °C) and smaller (∼0.9 °C) negative temperature biases are obtained in Grell–FC and Kuo convective scheme, respectively, and intermediate values are obtained in Grell–AS. The small domain simulation produces results substantially different, both for air temperature and precipitation. Temperature estimations are better for the small domain, while the precipitation estimations are better for the big domain. An additional experiment showed that by using BATS to calculate the ocean fluxes in the big domain instead of the Zeng scheme, precipitation increases by 25% and the share of convective precipitation rose from 18% to 45% of the total, which implies a better simulation of precipitation. These changes were attributed to an increase of near surface latent heating when using BATS over the ocean. The use of BATS also reduces the cold bias by about 0.3–0.4 °C, associated with an increase of minimum temperature. The behavior of the precipitation diurnal cycle and its relation with sea breeze was investigated in the small domain experiments. Results showed that the Grell–Arakawa–Schubert closure describes better this circulation as compared with Grell–Fritsch–Chappell closure.     

陆面过程模型CoLM与区域气候模式RegCM3的耦合及初步评估

陆面过程通过影响陆面和大气之间物质（如,水分）和能量的交换影响气候, 其参数化方案对数值天气预报、全球及区域气候模拟有重要影响。本研究利用对生物物理、生物化学过程考虑更全面的陆面模式Common Land Model(CoLM) 替代区域气候模式RegCM3原有的陆面模式BATS, 发展了耦合区域气候模式C－RegCM3; 将其应用于东亚地区典型洪涝年份夏季气候模拟以进行评估, 结果表明新耦合的模式C－RegCM3能合理模拟大尺度环流场、近地表气温和降水的分布特征, 对西北半干旱地区降水模拟比RegCM3有所改进。通过利用区域气候模式C－RegCM3及RegCM3对地表能量和水文过程模拟结果的比较, 发现在半干旱、半湿润过渡区C－RegCM3模拟的潜热增大、感热减小; 模拟的地表吸收太阳辐射差异较明显的地区位于模式模拟的主要雨区; C-RegCM3在上述过渡区模拟的夏季地表土壤湿度比RegCM3偏干, 这与它在过渡区降水模拟偏少、蒸散发模拟偏大相对应, 体现了该模式在半干旱、半湿润过渡带模拟出比RegCM3更明显的局地土壤湿度－降水－蒸散发之间的正反馈作用。     

A sensitivity study of the Regional Climate Model (RegCM3) to the convective scheme with emphasis in central eastern and southeastern Europe

Regional climate simulations have been performed over the greater European area for 3 years using three convective parameterizations: (a) the Grell scheme with Arakawa-Schubert (AS) closure assumption, (b) the Grell scheme with Fritsch-Chappell (FC) closure assumption and (c) the MIT scheme. The comparison of the model results of near-surface temperature with near-surface temperature observations indicates a cold bias with both Grell scheme configurations. This bias is significantly reduced when the MIT convective scheme is introduced, even during months of low convective activity. The temperature differences between the Grell (with either AS or FC closure schemes) and the MIT scheme are largest in the lower troposphere, extending up to 700 hPa. In terms of total precipitation, no systematical differences between Grell and MIT schemes are observed throughout the year for the European domain but the convective portion of total precipitation is greater in the MIT scheme simulations. For the central Eastern Europe region, MIT scheme simulations generally produce more precipitation during the warm season than Grell simulations, while for the southern Eastern Europe region, the MIT precipitation enhancement is small and not systematically positive. It is evident that the cause of the differences between the convective schemes is the more intense convection in the MIT scheme configuration, which in turn imposes a more effective drying of the atmosphere, less low-level clouds, more short-wave solar radiation absorbed from the ground and hence warmer low level temperatures.     

淮河流域陆面水文过程的数值模拟

采用生物-大气传输模式（BATS模型）模拟了淮河流域山丘区和平原区在1998年汛期的暴雨洪水过程,从陆地-大气间水量交换的角度揭示了径流量、土壤含水量、土壤质地、植被分布的内在联系。结果表明：对于山丘区和平原区而言,根系层土壤含水量、土壤质地以及土壤颜色的变化对径流量的影响具有相似性,但是敏感性不同;而山丘区和平原区深层土壤含水量和植被覆盖率变化对径流量影响的作用正好相反。这些结果显示,由于山丘区与平原区的不同气候和下垫面条件,而造成两者水文性质的差异性,反映了大气-水文之间关系与作用的不同特征。     

Land surface coupling in regional climate simulations of the West African monsoon

Coupling of the Community Land Model (CLM3) to the ICTP Regional Climate Model (RegCM3) substantially improves the simulation of mean climate over West Africa relative to an older version of RegCM3 coupled to the Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS). Two 10-year simulations (1992–2001) show that the seasonal timing and magnitude of mean monsoon precipitation more closely match observations when the new land surface scheme is implemented. Specifically, RegCM3–CLM3 improves the timing of the monsoon advance and retreat across the Guinean Coast, and reduces a positive precipitation bias in the Sahel and Northern Africa. As a result, simulated temperatures are higher, thereby reducing the negative temperature bias found in the Guinean Coast and Sahel in RegCM3–BATS. In the RegCM3–BATS simulation, warmer temperatures in northern latitudes and wetter soils near the coast create excessively strong temperature and moist static energy gradients, which shifts the African Easterly Jet further north than observed. In the RegCM3–CLM3 simulation, the migration and position of the African Easterly Jet more closely match reanalysis winds. This improvement is triggered by drier soil conditions in the RegCM3–CLM3 simulation and an increase in evapotranspiration per unit precipitation. These results indicate that atmosphere–land surface coupling has the ability to impact regional-scale circulation and precipitation in regions exhibiting strong hydroclimatic gradients.     

区域气候模式(RegCM2)与水文模式耦合的数值试验

建立不均匀的地表径流算法，修改RegCM2的径流方案，设计了一个适合与气候模式RegCM2耦合、能模拟水文站流量的汇流模式，模拟了1998年6、7、8月降水的空间分布，分析了该径流方案对降水、地表热量通量、地表径流、土壤湿度产生的影响。结果表明：（1）该方案在模拟1998年长江流域降水空间分布上有一定的合理性，在一定程度上改善了降水量的模拟，其影响大致是总降水量的10％；（2）地表径流方案改变了地面向大气输送的热量通量，这种作用随时间发生变化，这种变化与地表水分的再分配有关；（3）本方案计算的土壤渗透率较强，在暴雨初期，产生径流较少，而在暴雨后期土壤湿度增大，产生的地表径流较大，这一点更符合洪水形成的特点；（4）水文一气候耦合模式模拟了两个长江水文站的流量，模拟值基本反映了实测值的变化趋势，也表明耦合模式基本能反映1998年夏季长江流域大暴雨期间的地表水文过程。     

大规模城镇化对黄淮海地区气候及水资源影响的数值试验

黄淮海地区是我国传统的农耕区,也是经济快速发展、城镇化进程快速推进的区域之一,使得该地区植被覆盖发生了明显变化。为研究城镇化对气候与水资源的影响,应用RegCM3区域气候模式,通过控制试验和敏感性试验,在保证积分时间（2001-2005年）的情况下,输出降水、蒸发、温度、湿度、土壤水分、径流、整层水汽含量等资料,利用敏感性试验和控制试验输出量的差值,来分析黄淮海地区城镇化对气候和水资源要素的影响情况。结果表明,城镇化对研究地区气候及水资源造成的影响主要表现在使局地风场减弱、降水减少、地面气温增加、空气湿度减小、水资源总量减少、土壤含水量减少和地表径流增加等方面,从而对气候和水资源造成影响。     

Effects of Crop Growth and Development on Land Surface Fluxes

In this study, the Crop Estimation through Resource and Environment Synthesis model (CERES3.0) was coupled into the Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS), which is called BATS CERES, to represent interactions between the land surface and crop growth processes. The effects of crop growth and development on land surface processes were then studied based on numerical simulations using the land surface models. Six sensitivity experiments by BATS show that the land surface fluxes underwent substantial changes when the leaf area index was changed from 0 to 6 m2 m-2. Numerical experiments for Yucheng and Taoyuan stations reveal that the coupled model could capture not only the responses of crop growth and development to environmental conditions, but also the feedbacks to land surface processes. For quantitative evaluation of the effects of crop growth and development on surface fluxes in China, two numerical experiments were conducted over continental China: one by BATS CERES and one by the original BATS. Comparison of the two runs shows decreases of leaf area index and fractional vegetation cover when incorporating dynamic crops in land surface simulation, which lead to less canopy interception, vegetation transpiration, total evapotranspiration, top soil moisture, and more soil evaporation, surface runoff, and root zone soil moisture. These changes are accompanied by decreasing latent heat flux and increasing sensible heat flux in the cropland region. In addition, the comparison between the simulations and observations proved that incorporating the crop growth and development process into the land surface model could reduce the systematic biases of the simulated leaf area index and top soil moisture, hence improve the simulation of land surface fluxes.     

Regional climate simulations of summer diurnal rainfall variations over East Asia and Southeast China

This study evaluates the performance of RegCM3 (Regional Climate Model Version 3) in simulating the East Asian rainfall, with emphasis on the diurnal variations of rainfall over Southeast China during the 1998–2002 summer (June–August) seasons. The evaluation focuses on the sensitivity of the choice of cumulus parameterizations and model domain. With the right setup, the spatial and temporal evolution of diurnal rainfall over Southeast China, which has not been well simulated by past studies, can be accurately simulated by RegCM3. Results show that the Emanuel cumulus scheme has a more realistic simulation of summer mean rainfall in East Asia, while the GFC (Grell scheme with the Frisch-Chappell convective closure assumption) scheme is better in simulating the diurnal variations of rainfall over Southeast China. The better performance of these two schemes [relative to the other two schemes in RegCM3: the Kuo scheme and the GAS (Grell scheme with the Arakawa–Schubert closure assumption) scheme] can be attributed to the reasonable reproduction of the major formation mechanism of rainfall—the moisture flux convergence—over Southeast China. Furthermore, when the simulation domain covers the entire Tibetan Plateau, the diurnal variations of rainfall over Southeast China are found to exhibit a noticeable improvement without changes in the physics schemes.     

Climate change impact on precipitation for the Amazon and La Plata basins

We analyze the local and remote impacts of climate change on the hydroclimate of the Amazon and La Plata basins of South America (SA) in an ensemble of four 21st century projections (1970–2100, RCP8.5 scenario) with the regional climate model RegCM4 driven by the HadGEM, GFDL and MPI global climate models (GCMs) over the SA CORDEX domain. Two RegCM4 configurations are used, one employing the CLM land surface and the Emanuel convective schemes, and one using the BATS land surface and Grell (over land) convection schemes. First, we find considerable sensitivity of the precipitation change signal to both the driving GCM and the RegCM4 physics schemes (with the latter even greater than the first), highlighting the pronounced uncertainty of regional projections over the region. However, some improvements in the simulation of the annual cycle of precipitation over the Amazon and La Plata basins is found when using RegCM4, and some consistent change signals across the experiments are found. One is a tendency towards an extension of the dry season over central SA deriving from a late onset and an early retreat of the SA monsoon. The second is a dipolar response consisting of reduced precipitation over the broad Amazon and Central Brazil region and increased precipitation over the La Plata basin and central Argentina. An analysis of the relative influence on the change signal of local soil-moisture feedbacks and remote effects of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) over the Niño 3.4 region indicates that the former is prevalent over the Amazon basin while the latter dominates over the La Plata Basin. Also, the soil moisture feedback has a larger role in RegCM4 than in the GCMs.     

Sensitivity of the GCM driven summer monsoon simulations to cumulus parameterization schemes in nested RegCM3

The regional climate model (RegCM3) from the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics has been used to simulate the Indian summer monsoon for three different monsoon seasons such as deficit (1987), excess (1988) and normal (1989). Sensitivity to various cumulus parameterization and closure schemes of RegCM3 driven by the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting global spectral model products has been tested. The model integration of the nested RegCM3 is conducted using 90 and 30-km horizontal resolutions for outer and inner domains, respectively. The India Meteorological Department gridded rainfall (1° × 1°) and National Centre for Environment Prediction (NCEP)–Department of Energy (DOE) reanalysis-2 of 2.5° × 2.5° horizontal resolution data has been used for verification. The RegCM3 forced by NCEP–DOE reanalysis-2 data simulates monsoon seasons of 1987 and 1988 reasonably well, but the monsoon season of 1989 is not represented well in the model simulations. The RegCM3 runs driven by the global model are able to bring out seasonal mean rainfall and circulations well with the use of the Grell and Anthes–Kuo cumulus scheme at 90-km resolution. While the rainfall intensity and distribution is brought out well with the Anthes–Kuo scheme, upper air circulation features are brought out better by the Grell scheme. The simulated rainfall distribution is better with RegCM3 using the MIT-Emanuel cumulus scheme for 30-km resolution. Several statistical analyses, such as correlation coefficient, root mean square error, equitable threat score, confirm that the performance of MIT-Emanuel scheme at 30-km resolution is better in simulating all-India summer monsoon rainfall. The RegCM3 simulated rainfall amount is more and closer to observations than that from the global model. The RegCM3 has corrected its driven GCM in terms of rainfall distribution and magnitude over some parts of India during extreme years. This study brings out several weaknesses of the RegCM model which are documented in this paper.     

陆面过程模式的改进及其检验

文中对陆面过程模式 (BATS)进行了改进 ,改进后的模式能较好地模拟地表物理量的年、季和日变化 ,它有两方面的特点 :采用热扩散方程模拟 7层土壤温度 ,模拟的温度可与实测值进行比较 ;在BATS的地表径流方案中 ,考虑了空间不均匀性的一般地表径流 (GVIC)过程 ,研究结果表明 :⑴模式能很好地模拟各层土壤温度的年、季和日变化。冬季土壤温度下层高于上层 ,而在夏季上层高于下层 ,这种上下层温度的转换时间大约在 4和 10月份 ,这与实测土壤温度的年变化非常一致。较为准确地模拟了各层土壤温度日变化的时滞效应。⑵用南京和武汉站的资料 ,将BATS地表径流方案模拟的地表水分分量与GVIC方案进行比较 ,BATS地表径流方案模拟的地表水分分量 ,与总水量的平衡相差较大 ,而GVIC模拟的效果相对较好 ,地表总水量基本上与降水总量达到了平衡     

作物生长对流域水文过程与区域气候的影响

利用区域气候模式RegCM3以及考虑作物生长过程的耦合模式RegCM3_CERES对东亚区域进行20年模拟,研究作物生长对流域水文过程与区域气候的影响。结果表明：考虑作物生长过程的耦合模式模拟海河流域、松花江流域、珠江流域多年平均降水效果明显改进,在除黑河流域外的各流域模拟的温度负偏差有所减小,其中在海河流域、淮河流域的夏季改进尤为明显。各流域夏季（6、7、8月）月蒸散量最高,其中长江流域、海河流域、淮河流域、珠江流域的夏季月蒸散量基本上在100 mm左右,并且七大流域蒸散发的季节变化趋势跟总降水基本一致。多数流域考虑作物生长过程的耦合模式模拟得出蒸散发减少且进入的水汽增加,导致局地水循环率减小;黑河流域与黄河流域降水有所增加,其他流域均有不同程度的减小。针对长江流域,比较耦合模式RegCM3_CERES与模式RegCM3模拟结果显示,叶面积指数减少1.20 m²/m²,根区土壤湿度增加0.01 m³/m³,进而导致潜热通量下降1.34 W/m²（其中在四川盆地地区减少16.00 W/m²左右）,感热通量增加2.04 W/m²,从而影响到降水和气温。     

RegCM4.1对中国区域气候模拟能力评估

利用中国气象局提供的1985—2004年756个台站的逐日降水和气温观测数据评估了区域气候模式(RegCM4.1)对中国地区不同季节的降水和气温的模拟性能,并结合中国的区域气候特征和气候带分布进行分区讨论。结果表明RegCM4.1能够较好地再现中国地区四季降水占全年百分比、降水率的空间分布特点以及降水带南北摆动的季节变化特征。RegCM4.1对平均气温分布模拟较好,强度和高低中心与观测事实接近,但对青藏高原地区的气温分布模拟值一致偏低。同时发现RegCM4.1能够合理再现内陆地区气温日较差明显大于沿海地区的总体分布特征,不过模拟值在新疆和沿海地区比观测结果均偏低。     

Local Initiation of Deep Convection on the Canadian Prairie Provinces

Our study found that local mesoscale circulations associated with highlandareas, and transient evapotranspiration discontinuities, are likely to influencethe timing and location of the initiation of deep convection across the Canadianprairie provinces when synoptic-scale forcing is weak (e.g., weak low level windsand no frontal boundaries). The cumulus congestus and cumulonimbus clouds thatformed over the highland areas were initiated by anabatic wind induced mesoscalecirculations. These deep convective clouds generally formed relatively early in theday (about 1030 Central Standard Time (CST)). In the relatively flat cropped grasslandregion, transient evapotranspiration gradients influenced the location of deep convectioninitiation, and the average soil moisture in the root zone had a direct impact on theirtiming. As root zone soil moisture declined from greater than 70% to less than 30%,convection initiation was delayed from about 0930 to 1630 CST. Cumulus congestusand cumulonimbus clouds that formed over the ephemeral evapotranspiration gradientswere initiated by land-land circulations. The study has improved the understanding ofthe influence of local surface forcing on the development of deep convective cloud onthe Canadian prairie provinces. The identification of areas where deep convection islikely to be initiated with weak synoptic forcing will also aid in the forecasting ofthunderstorms in this region.     

AN IMPROVED LAND-SURFACE PROCESS MODEL AND ITS SIMULATION EXPERIMENT-PART II:COUPLING SIMULATION EXPERIMENT OF LAND-SURFACE PROCESS MODEL WITH REGIONAL CLIMATE MODEL

The Land-surface Process Model(LPM-ZD)has been successfully coupled with the regionalclimate model RegCM2 of NCAR.Then thus-obtained coupled model(CRegCM)has been appliedto simulate the climate characteristics of heavy rain in middle and East China for three months fromMay to July 1991.and compared with model output of NCAR-RegCM2 using BATS as land-surface process scheme,abbreviated as NRegCM.The results show that CRegCM has good abilityand performance.CRegCM successfully simulates the extreme precipitation event and thesimulations of CRegCM for surface temperature and some physical variables related to land surfaceprocess are more reasonable than those of NRegCM.