The first multi-model ensemble of regional climate simulations at kilometer-scale resolution part 2: historical and future simulations of precipitation

This paper presents the first multi-model ensemble of 10-year, “convection-permitting” kilometer-scale regional climate model (RCM) scenario simulations downscaled from selected CMIP5 GCM projections for historical and end of century time slices. The technique is to first downscale the CMIP5 GCM projections to an intermediate 12–15 km resolution grid using RCMs, and then use these fields to downscale further to the kilometer scale. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of the representation of the precipitation characteristics and their projected changes over the greater Alpine domain within a Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment Flagship Pilot Study and the European Climate Prediction system project, tasked with investigating convective processes at the kilometer scale. An ensemble of 12 simulations performed by different research groups around Europe is analyzed. The simulations are evaluated through comparison with high resolution observations while the complementary ensemble of 12 km resolution driving models is used as a benchmark to evaluate the added value of the convection-permitting ensemble. The results show that the kilometer-scale ensemble is able to improve the representation of fine scale details of mean daily, wet-day/hour frequency, wet-day/hour intensity and heavy precipitation on a seasonal scale, reducing uncertainty over some regions. It also improves the representation of the summer diurnal cycle, showing more realistic onset and peak of convection. The kilometer-scale ensemble refines and enhances the projected patterns of change from the coarser resolution simulations and even modifies the sign of the precipitation intensity change and heavy precipitation over some regions. The convection permitting simulations also show larger changes for all indices over the diurnal cycle, also suggesting a change in the duration of convection over some regions. A larger positive change of frequency of heavy to severe precipitation is found. The results are encouraging towards the use of convection-permitting model ensembles to produce robust assessments of the local impacts of future climate change.

     

Simulation of the annual and diurnal cycles of rainfall over South Africa by a regional climate model

The capability of a current state-of-the-art regional climate model for simulating the diurnal and annual cycles of rainfall over a complex subtropical region is documented here. Hourly rainfall is simulated over Southern Africa for 1998–2006 by the non-hydrostatic model weather research and forecasting (WRF), and compared to a network of 103 stations covering South Africa. We used five simulations, four of which consist of different parameterizations for atmospheric convection at a 0.5 × 0.5° resolution, performed to test the physic-dependency of the results. The fifth experiment uses explicit convection over tropical South Africa at a 1/30° resolution. WRF simulates realistic mean rainfall fields, albeit wet biases over tropical Africa. The model mean biases are strongly modulated by the convective scheme used for the simulations. The annual cycle of rainfall is well simulated over South Africa, mostly influenced by tropical summer rainfall except in the Western Cape region experiencing winter rainfall. The diurnal cycle shows a timing bias, with atmospheric convection occurring too early in the afternoon, and causing too abundant rainfall. This result, particularly true in summer over the northeastern part of the country, is weakly physic-dependent. Cloud-resolving simulations do not clearly reduce the diurnal cycle biases. In the end, the rainfall overestimations appear to be mostly imputable to the afternoon hours of the austral summer rainy season, i.e., the periods during which convective activity is intense over the region.     

MM5 simulations of interannual change and the diurnal cycle of southern African regional climate

Summary Two cumulus convection and two planetary boundary layer schemes are used to investigate the climate of southern Africa using the MM5 regional climate model. Both a wet (1988/89) and a dry (1991/92) summer (December–February, DJF) rainfall season are simulated and the results compared with three different observational sources: Climate Research Unit seasonal data (precipitation, 2 m surface temperature, number of rain days), satellite-derived diurnal precipitation and the Surface Radiation Budget diurnal short-wave fluxes and optical depth. Using the ETA model boundary layer in MM5 simulates too much incident short-wave radiation at the surface at 12 UTC, whereas the medium range forecast model boundary layer yields a diurnal cycle of short-wave radiation closer to the observed. The Betts-Miller convection scheme in MM5 simulates peak rainfall later in the day and less rain days than observed, whereas when using the Kain-Fritsch convection scheme a peak rainfall earlier in the day and more rain days than observed are simulated. The intensity of the hydrological cycle is therefore dependent on the choice of convection scheme, which in turn is further modified by the boundary layer scheme. Precipitation during the wet 1988/89 season is reasonably captured by most simulations, though using the Betts-Miller scheme more accurately simulates rainfall during the dry 1991/92 season. Mean DJF biases in the surface temperature and diurnal temperature range are consistent with biases in the number of rain days and the diurnal cycles of surface moisture and energy.     

Diurnal cycles of precipitation over subtropical China in IPCC AR5 AMIP simulations

Atmospheric Intercomparison Project simulations of the summertime diurnal cycle of precipitation and low-level winds over subtropical China by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report models were evaluated. By analyzing the diurnal variation of convective and stratiform components, results confirmed that major biases in rainfall diurnal cycles over subtropical China are due to convection parameterization and further pointed to the diurnal variation of convective rainfall being closely related to the closure of the convective scheme. All models captured the early-morning peak of total rainfall over the East China Sea, but most models had problems in simulating diurnal rainfall variations over land areas of subtropical China. When total rainfall was divided into stratiform and convective rainfall, all models successfully simulated the diurnal variation of stratiform rainfall with a maximum in the early morning. The models, overestimating noon-time （nocturnal） total rainfall over land, generally simulated too much convective rainfall, which peaked close to noon （midnight）, sharing some similarities in the closures of their deep convection schemes. The better performance of the Meteorological Research Institute atmospherer. ocean coupled global climate model version 3 （MRI-CGCM3） is attributed to the well captured ratio of the two kinds of rainfall, but not diurnal variations of the two components. Therefore, a proper ratio of convective and stratiform rainfall to total rainfall is also important to improve simulated diurnal rainfall variation.     

Simulations of precipitation using NRCM and comparisons with satellite observations and CAM: annual cycle

The accurate representation of rainfall in models of global climate has been a challenging task for climate modelers owing to its small space and time scales. Quantifying this variability is important for comparing simulations of atmospheric behavior with real time observations. In this regard, this paper compares both the statistical and dynamically forced aspects of precipitation variability simulated by the high-resolution (36?km) Nested Regional Climate Model (NRCM), with satellite observations from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B42 dataset and simulations from the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) at T85 spatial resolution. Six years of rainfall rate data (2000?C2005) from within the Tropics (30°S?C30°N) have been used in the analysis and results are presented in terms of long-term mean rain rates, amplitude and phase of the annual cycle and seasonal mean maps of precipitation. Our primary focus is on characterizing the annual cycle of rainfall over four land regions of the Tropics namely, the Indian Monsoon, the Amazon, Tropical Africa and the North American monsoon. The lower tropospheric circulation patterns are analyzed in both the observations and the models to identify possible causes for biases in the simulated precipitation. The 6-year mean precipitation simulated by both models show substantial biases throughout the global Tropics with NRCM/CAM systematically underestimating/overestimating rainfall almost everywhere. The seasonal march of rainfall across the equator, following the motion of the sun, is clearly seen in the harmonic vector maps. The timing of peak rainfall (phase) produced by NRCM is in closer agreement with the observations compared to CAM. However like the long-time mean, the magnitude of seasonal mean rainfall is greatly underestimated by NRCM throughout the Tropical land mass. Some of these regional biases can be attributed to erroneous circulation and moisture surpluses/deficits in the lower troposphere in both models. Overall, the results seem to indicate that employing a higher spatial resolution (36?km) does not significantly improve simulation of precipitation. We speculate that a combination of several physics parameterizations and lack of model tuning gives rise to the observed differences between NRCM and the observations.     

Dynamic downscaling of summer precipitation prediction over China in 1998 using WRF and CCSM4

To study the prediction of the anomalous precipitation and general circulation for the summer(June–July–August) of1998, the Community Climate System Model Version 4.0(CCSM4.0) integrations were used to drive version 3.2 of the Weather Research and Forecasting(WRF3.2) regional climate model to produce hindcasts at 60 km resolution. The results showed that the WRF model produced improved summer precipitation simulations. The systematic errors in the east of the Tibetan Plateau were removed, while in North China and Northeast China the systematic errors still existed. The improvements in summer precipitation interannual increment prediction also had regional characteristics. There was a marked improvement over the south of the Yangtze River basin and South China, but no obvious improvement over North China and Northeast China. Further analysis showed that the improvement was present not only for the seasonal mean precipitation, but also on a sub-seasonal timescale. The two occurrences of the Mei-yu rainfall agreed better with the observations in the WRF model,but were not resolved in CCSM. These improvements resulted from both the higher resolution and better topography of the WRF model.     

Explicit and parameterized episodes of warm-season precipitation over the continental United States

This paper describes explicit and parameterized simulations of midsummer precipitation over the continental United States for two distinct episodes： moderate large-scale forcing and weak forcing. The objective is to demonstrate the capability of explicit convection at currently affordable grid-resolution and compare it with parameterized realizations. Under moderate forcing, 3-kin grid-resolution explicit simulations represent rainfall coherence remarkably well. The observed daily convective generation near the Continental Divide and the subsequent organization and propagation are reproduced qualitatively. The propagation speed, zonal extent and duration of the rainfall streaks compare favorably with their observed counterparts, although the streak frequency is underestimated. The simulations at -10-km grid-resolution applying conventional convective parameterization schemes also replicate reasonably well the diurnal convective regeneration in moderate forcing. The performance of the 3-km grid-resolution model demonstrates the potential of -1-km-resolution explicit cloud-resolving models for the prediction of warm season precipitation for moderately forced environments. In weak forcing conditions, however, predictions of precipitation coherence and diurnal variability are much poorer. This suggests that an even finer resolution explicit model is required to adequately treat convective initiation and upscale organization typical of the warm season over the continental U.S.     

The Intra-Seasonal Oscillation and its control of tropical cyclones simulated by high-resolution global atmospheric models

Project Athena is an international collaboration testing the efficacy of high-resolution global climate models. We compare results from 7-km mesh experiments of the Nonhydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) and 10-km mesh experiments of the Integrated Forecast System (IFS), focusing on the Intra-Seasonal Oscillation (ISO) and its relationship with tropical cyclones (TC) among the boreal summer period (21 May–31 Aug) of 8?years (2001–2002, 2004–2009). In the first month of simulation, both models capture the intra-seasonal oscillatory behavior of the Indian monsoon similar to the observed boreal summer ISO in approximately half of the 8-year samples. The IFS simulates the NW–SE-oriented rainband and the westerly location better, while NICAM marginally reproduces mesoscale organized convective systems and better simulates the northward migration of the westerly peak and precipitation, particularly in 2006. The reproducibility of the evolution of MJO depends on the given year; IFS simulates the MJO signal well for 2002, while NICAM simulates it well for 2006. An empirical orthogonal function analysis shows that both models statistically reproduce MJO signals similar to observations, with slightly better phase speed reproduced by NICAM. Stronger TCs are simulated in NICAM than in IFS, and NICAM shows a wind-pressure relation for TCs closer to observations. TC cyclogenesis is active during MJO phases 3 and 4 in NICAM as in observations. The results show the potential of high-resolution global atmospheric models in reproducing some aspects of the relationship between MJO and TCs and the statistical behavior of TCs.     

A climate version of the regional atmospheric modeling system

Summary  The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) has been widely used to simulate relatively short-term atmospheric processes. To perform full-year to multi-year model integrations, a climate version of RAMS (ClimRAMS) has been developed, and is used to simulate diurnal, seasonal, and annual cycles of atmospheric and hydrologic variables and interactions within the central United States during 1989. The model simulation uses a 200-km grid covering the conterminous United States, and a nested, 50-km grid covering the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado. The model’s lateral boundary conditions are forced by six-hourly NCEP reanalysis products. ClimRAMS includes simplified precipitation and radiation sub-models, and representations that describe the seasonal evolution of vegetation-related parameters. In addition, ClimRAMS can use all of the general RAMS capabilities, like its more complex radiation sub-models, and explicit cloud and precipitation microphysics schemes. Thus, together with its nonhydrostatic and fully-interactive telescoping-grid capabilities, ClimRAMS can be applied to a wide variety of problems. Because of non-linear interactions between the land surface and atmosphere, simulating the observed climate requires simulating the observed diurnal, synoptic, and seasonal cycles. While previous regional climate modeling studies have demonstrated their ability to simulate the seasonal cycles through comparison with observed monthly-mean temperature and precipitation data sets, this study demonstrates that a regional climate model can also capture observed diurnal and synoptic variability. Observed values of daily precipitation and maximum and minimum screen-height air temperature are used to demonstrate this ability. Received September 27, 1999 Revised December 11, 1999     

A Climate Version of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System

Summary The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) has been widely used to simulate relatively short-term atmospheric processes. To perform full-year to multi-year model integrations, a climate version of RAMS (ClimRAMS) has been developed, and is used to simulate diurnal, seasonal, and annual cycles of atmospheric and hydrologic variables and interactions within the central United States during 1989. The model simulation uses a 200-km grid covering the conterminous United States, and a nested, 50-km grid covering the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado. The model’s lateral boundary conditions are forced by six-hourly NCEP reanalysis products. ClimRAMS includes simplified precipitation and radiation sub-models, and representations that describe the seasonal evolution of vegetation-related parameters. In addition, ClimRAMS can use all of the general RAMS capabilities, like its more complex radiation sub-models, and explicit cloud and precipitation microphysics schemes. Thus, together with its nonhydrostatic and fully-interactive telescoping-grid capabilities, ClimRAMS can be applied to a wide variety of problems. Because of non-linear interactions between the land surface and atmosphere, simulating the observed climate requires simulating the observed diurnal, synoptic, and seasonal cycles. While previous regional climate modeling studies have demonstrated their ability to simulate the seasonal cycles through comparison with observed monthly-mean temperature and precipitation data sets, this study demonstrates that a regional climate model can also capture observed diurnal and synoptic variability. Observed values of daily precipitation and maximum and minimum screen-height air temperature are used to demonstrate this ability. Received September 27, 1999 Revised December 11, 1999     

Evaluation of Heavy Rainfall Model Forecasts over the Korean Peninsula Using Different Physical Parameterization Schemes and Horizontal Resolution

In this study, the accuracy of a Pennsylvania State University-National Center for Atmospheric Research mesoscale model (PSU/NCAR MM5) for predicting heavy summer precipitation over the Korean Peninsula was investigated. A total of 1800 simulations were performed using this model for 30 heavy rainfall events employing four cumulus parameterization schemes (CPS), two grid-scale resolvable precipitation schemes (GRS), and two planetary boundary layer (PBL) schemes in three model resolutions (90 km, 30 km, and 10 km). The heavy rainfall events were mesoscale convective systems developed under the influence of mid-latitude baroclinic systems with low-level moisture transport from the ocean. The predictive accuracy for maximum rainfall was approximately 80% for 10-km resolution and was 60% for 30-km resolution. The predictive accuracy for rainfall position extended to ～150 km from the observed position for both resolutions. Simulated rainfall was most sensitive to CPS, then to PBL schemes, and then to GRS. In general, the Grell (GR) scheme and the Anthes and Kuo (AK) scheme showed a better prediction capability for heavy rainfall than did the Betts-Miller (BM) scheme and the Kain-Fritsch (KF) scheme. The GR scheme also performed well in the 24-h and 12-h precipitation predictions: the parameterized convective rainfall in GR is directly related to synoptic-scale forcing. The models without CPS performed better for rainfall amounts but worse for rainfall position than those with CPS. The MM5 model demonstrated substantial predictive capacity using synoptic-scale initial conditions and lateral boundary data because heavy summer rainfall in Korea occurs in a strong synoptic-scale environment.     

Mid-Century Ensemble Regional Climate Change Scenarios for the Western United States

To study the impacts of climate change on water resources in the western U.S., global climate simulations were produced using the National Center for Atmospheric Research/Department of Energy (NCAR/DOE) Parallel Climate Model (PCM). The Penn State/NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) was used to downscale the PCM control (20 years) and three future(2040–2060) climate simulations to yield ensemble regional climate simulations at 40 km spatial resolution for the western U.S. This paper describes the regional simulations and focuses on the hydroclimate conditions in the Columbia River Basin (CRB) and Sacramento-San Joaquin River (SSJ) Basin. Results based on global and regional simulations show that by mid-century, the average regional warming of 1 to 2.5 °C strongly affects snowpack in the western U.S. Along coastal mountains, reduction in annual snowpack was about70% as indicated by the regional simulations. Besides changes in mean temperature, precipitation, and snowpack, cold season extreme daily precipitation increased by 5 to 15 mm/day (15–20%) along theCascades and the Sierra. The warming resulted in increased rainfall at the expense of reduced snowfall, and reduced snow accumulation (or earlier snowmelt) during the cold season. In the CRB, these changes were accompanied by more frequent rain-on-snow events. Overall, they induced higher likelihood of wintertime flooding and reduced runoff and soil moisture in the summer. Changes in surface water and energy budgets in the CRB and SSJ basin were affected mainly by changes in surface temperature, which were statistically significant at the 0.95 confidence level. Changes in precipitation, while spatially incoherent, were not statistically significant except for the drying trend during summer. Because snow and runoff are highly sensitive tospatial distributions of temperature and precipitation, this study shows that (1) downscaling provides more realistic estimates of hydrologic impacts in mountainous regions such as the western U.S., and (2) despite relatively small changes in temperature and precipitation, changes in snowpack and runoff can be much larger on monthly to seasonal time scales because the effects of temperature and precipitation are integrated over time and space through various surface hydrological and land-atmosphere feedback processes. Although the results reported in this study were derived from an ensemble of regional climate simulations driven by a global climate model that displays low climate sensitivity compared with most other models, climate change was found to significantly affect water resources in the western U.S. by the mid twenty-first century.     

LMDZ5B: the atmospheric component of the IPSL climate model with revisited parameterizations for clouds and convection

Based on a decade of research on cloud processes, a new version of the LMDZ atmospheric general circulation model has been developed that corresponds to a complete recasting of the parameterization of turbulence, convection and clouds. This LMDZ5B version includes a mass-flux representation of the thermal plumes or rolls of the convective boundary layer, coupled to a bi-Gaussian statistical cloud scheme, as well as a parameterization of the cold pools generated below cumulonimbus by re-evaporation of convective precipitation. The triggering and closure of deep convection are now controlled by lifting processes in the sub-cloud layer. An available lifting energy and lifting power are provided both by the thermal plumes and by the spread of cold pools. The individual parameterizations were carefully validated against the results of explicit high resolution simulations. Here we present the work done to go from those new concepts and developments to a full 3D atmospheric model, used in particular for climate change projections with the IPSL-CM5B coupled model. Based on a series of sensitivity experiments, we document the differences with the previous LMDZ5A version distinguishing the role of parameterization changes from that of model tuning. Improvements found previously in single-column simulations of case studies are confirmed in the 3D model: (1) the convective boundary layer and cumulus clouds are better represented and (2) the diurnal cycle of convective rainfall over continents is delayed by several hours, solving a longstanding problem in climate modeling. The variability of tropical rainfall is also larger in LMDZ5B at intraseasonal time-scales. Significant biases of the LMDZ5A model however remain, or are even sometimes amplified. The paper emphasizes the importance of parameterization improvements and model tuning in the frame of climate change studies as well as the new paradigm that represents the improvement of 3D climate models under the control of single-column case studies simulations.     

全球模式NCAR CESM和CAS ESM对亚洲东部夏季气候的模拟性能评估:气候平均态和降水日变化分析

主要评估了美国国家大气研究中心的NCAR CESM（Community Earth System Model,NCAR）和中国科学院的CAS ESM（Earth System Model,Chinese Academy of Sciences）两个地球系统模式对亚洲东部夏季气候态的模拟性能。使用NCAR CESM和CAS ESM各两种不同的水平分辨率,一共进行了4组长达19年（1998~2016年）的数值积分试验,并通过对2 m气温、降水强度和降水日变化等的分析,比较了这两个模式在亚洲东部的模拟性能。结果表明,CAS ESM和NCAR CESM均能模拟出夏季2 m气温和降水强度的大尺度分布特征,但整体上模拟得到的地表面气温偏暖、降水强度偏弱。对于降水日变化而言,观测的日降水峰值在陆地上主要发生在下午到傍晚时段,在海洋上则出现在午夜到凌晨时段。两组低分辨率试验模拟的陆地降水峰值出现过早,且无法模拟出四川盆地的夜间降水峰值和部分海洋地区凌晨或上午的降水峰值。提高分辨率对模式的模拟性能有显著的提升作用。高分辨率下,NCAR CESM和CAS ESM对陆地和海洋的降水日变化模拟性能都明显提高。对降水日变化的定量化分析表明,高分辨率CAS ESM模式对整个亚洲东部降水日变化的模拟最优。目前模式对海陆风的模拟还不太理想,未来要进一步提高模式模拟性能,需要重点完善与气温、降水过程相关的物理参数化方案。     

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.     

四川盆地夏季降水日变化的数值模拟

利用区域气候模式RegCM3对1991-2004年四川盆地夏季降水进行了数值模拟,通过模拟结果和NCEP/NCAR再分析资料的对比,评估了模式对四川盆地夏季＂夜雨＂现象的模拟能力。结果表明,RegCM3模式能较好地模拟出四川盆地夏季降水的空间分布和日变化规律,四川盆地夏季＂夜雨＂现象的形成与该地区的地形分布有密切关系。...     

Regional climate of hazardous convective weather through high-resolution dynamical downscaling

We explore the use of high-resolution dynamical downscaling as a means to simulate the regional climatology and variability of hazardous convective-scale weather. Our basic approach differs from a traditional regional climate model application in that it involves a sequence of daily integrations. We use the weather research and forecasting (WRF) model, with global reanalysis data as initial and boundary conditions. Horizontal grid lengths of 4.25?km allow for explicit representation of deep convective storms and hence a compilation of their occurrence statistics over a large portion of the conterminous United States. The resultant 10-year sequence of WRF model integrations yields precipitation that, despite its positive bias, has a diurnal cycle consistent with observations, and otherwise has a realistic geographical distribution. Similarly, the occurrence frequency of short-duration, potentially flooding rainfall compares well to analyses of hourly rain gauge data. Finally, the climatological distribution of hazardous-thunderstorm occurrence is shown to be represented with some degree of skill through a model proxy that relates rotating convective updraft cores to the presence of hail, damaging surface winds, and tornadoes. The results suggest that the proxy occurrences, when coupled with information on the larger-scale atmosphere, could provide guidance on the reliability of trends in the observed occurrences.     

Downscaling future climate change projections over Puerto Rico using a non-hydrostatic atmospheric model

We present results from 20-year “high-resolution” regional climate model simulations of precipitation change for the sub-tropical island of Puerto Rico. The Japanese Meteorological Agency Non-Hydrostatic Model (NHM) operating at a 2-km grid resolution is nested inside the Regional Spectral Model (RSM) at 10-km grid resolution, which in turn is forced at the lateral boundaries by the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4). At this resolution, the climate change experiment allows for deep convection in model integrations, which is an important consideration for sub-tropical regions in general, and on islands with steep precipitation gradients in particular that strongly influence local ecological processes and the provision of ecosystem services. Projected precipitation change for this region of the Caribbean is simulated for the mid-twenty-first century (2041–2060) under the RCP8.5 climate-forcing scenario relative to the late twentieth century (1986–2005). The results show that by the mid-twenty-first century, there is an overall rainfall reduction over the island for all seasons compared to the recent climate but with diminished mid-summer drought (MSD) in the northwestern parts of the island. Importantly, extreme rainfall events on sub-daily and daily time scales also become slightly less frequent in the projected mid-twenty-first-century climate over most regions of the island.     

对流允许尺度区域气候模拟的研究进展

与以往的区域气候模式相比,对流允许区域气候模式不再依赖于对流参数化方案,其精细的分辨率可以显式表示深对流过程,在夏季对流降水的日变化和极端降水事件模拟等方面具有明显增值能力,是区域气候模拟的发展方向。对现有的对流允许尺度区域气候模拟研究进行了较为详细的回顾和介绍,简述了对流允许尺度区域气候模式中比较重要的物理过程及外部驱动条件的影响,总结了以往对流允许尺度区域气候模拟的研究成果以及当下所面临的挑战和对未来的展望,以期对中国及东亚区域对流允许区域气候模拟的研究提供有益参考。诸多研究表明,对流允许区域气候模拟作为一种有前景的气候模式,可提供更加可靠的区域尺度的气候信息。     

A regional climate model for the western United States

A numerical approach to modeling climate on a regional scale is developed whereby large-scale weather systems are simulated with a global climate model (GCM) and the GCM output is used to provide the boundary conditions needed for high-resolution mesoscale model simulations over the region of interest. In our example, we use the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) community climate model (CCM1) and the Pennsylvania State University (PSU)/NCAR Mesoscale Model version 4 (MM4) to apply this approach over the western United States (U.S.). The topography, as resolved by the 500-km mesh of the CCM1, is necessarily highly distorted, but with the 60-km mesh of the MM4 the major mountain ranges are distinguished. To obtain adequate and consistent representations of surface climate, we use the same radiation and land surface treatments in both models, the latter being the recently developed Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS). Our analysis emphasizes the simulation at four CCM1 points surrounding Yucca Mountain, NV, because of the need to determine its climatology prior to certification as a high-level nuclear waste repository.We simulate global climate for three years with CCM1/BATS and describe the resulting January surface climatology over the western U.S. The details of the precipitation patterns are unrealistic because of the smooth topography. Selecting five January CCM1 storms that occur over the western U.S. with a total duration of 20 days for simulation with the MM4, we demonstrate that the mesoscale model provides much improved wintertime precipitation patterns. The storms in MM4 are individually much more realistic than those in CCM1. A simple averaging procedure that infers a mean January rainfall climatology calculated from the 20 days of MM4 simulation is much closer to the observed than is the CCM1 climatology. The soil moisture and subsurface drainage simulated over 3–5 day integration periods of MM4, however, remain strongly dependent on the initial CCM1 soil moisture and thus are less realistic than the rainfall. Adequate simulation of surface soil water may require integrations of the mesoscale model over time periods.The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. of up to several months or longer.