The role of lateral boundary conditions in simulations of mineral aerosols by a regional climate model of Southwest Asia

The importance of specifying realistic lateral boundary conditions in the regional modeling of mineral aerosols has not been examined previously. This study examines the impact of assigning values for mineral aerosol (dust) concentrations at the lateral boundaries of Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3) and its aerosol model over Southwest Asia. Currently, the dust emission module of RegCM3 operates over the interior of the domain, allowing dust to be transported to the boundaries, but neglecting any dust emitted at these points or from outside the domain. To account for possible dust occurring at, or entering from the boundaries, mixing ratios of dust concentrations from a larger domain RegCM3 simulation are specified at the boundaries of a smaller domain over Southwest Asia. The lateral boundary conditions are monthly averaged concentration values (μg of dust per kg of dry air) resolved in the vertical for all four dust bin sizes within RegCM3’s aerosol model. RegCM3 simulations with the aerosol/dust model including lateral boundary conditions for dust are performed for a five year period and compared to model simulations without prescribed dust concentrations at the boundaries. Results indicate that specifying boundary conditions has a significant impact on dust loading across the entire domain over Southwest Asia. More specifically, a nearly 30% increase in aerosol optical depth occurs during the summer months from specifying realistic dust boundary conditions, bringing model results closer to observations such as MISR. In addition, smaller dust particles at the boundaries have a more important impact than large particles in affecting the dust loading within the interior of this domain. Moreover, increases in aerosol optical depth and dust concentrations within the interior domain are not entirely caused by inflow from the boundaries; results indicate that an increase in the gradient of concentration at the boundaries causes an increase of diffusion from the boundaries. Lastly, experiments performed using a climatology of dust concentrations yield similar results to those using actual monthly values. Therefore, using a climatology of dust mixing ratios is sufficient in implementing lateral boundary conditions for mineral aerosols. In short, this work concludes that realistic specification of lateral boundary conditions for mineral aerosols can be important in modeling the dust loading over arid regional climates such as Southwest Asia.     

Precipitation pattern of the mid-Holocene simulated by a high-resolution regional climate model

Early proxy-based studies suggested that there potentially occurred a ＂southern drought/northern flood＂ （SDNF） over East China in the mid-Holocene （from roughly 7000 to 5000 years before present）.In this study,we used both global and regional atmospheric circulation models to demonstrate that the SDNF-namely,the precipitation increases over North China and decreases over the the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Valley--could have taken place in the mid-Holocene.We found that the SDNF in the mid-Holocene was likely caused by the lower SST in the Pacific.The lowered SST and the higher air temperature over mainland China increased the land-sea thermal contrast and,as a result,strengthened the East Asian summer monsoon and enhanced the precipitation over North China.     

嵌套域大小对区域气候模式模拟效果的影响

This paper presents a numerical study on the 1998 summer rainfall over the Yangtze River valley in central and eastern China, addressing effect of a nested area size on simulations in terms of the technique of nesting a regional climate model (RCM) upon a general circulation model (GCM). Evidence suggests that the size exerts greater impacts upon regional climate of the country, revealing that a larger nested size is su perior to a small one for simulation in mitigating errors of GCM-provided lateral boundary forcing. Also,simulations show that the RCM should incorporate regions of climate systems of great importance into study and a low-resolution GCM yields more pronounced errors as a rule when used in the research of the Tibetan Plateau, and, in contrast, our PσRCM can do a good job in describing the plateau′s role in a more realistic and accurate way. It is for this reason that the tableland should be included in the nested area when the RCM is employed to investigate the regional climate. Our PσRCM nesting upon a GCM reaches morerealistic results compared to a single GCM used.     

Effect of lateral boundary scheme on the simulation of tropical cyclone track in regional climate model RegCM3

The effect of the lateral boundary scheme in regional climate model (RCM) on the track simulation of tropical cyclone (TC) was investigated using RegCM3, for the case of Winnie (1997), which formed in the Western Pacific and landed on China in August 1997. The results show that there is an inevitable simulation error in the track of Winnie, and the narrower buffer zone size (BZS) will make a great error. However, it was demonstrated that a much broader BZS does not allow a better track simulation of Winnie, and the optimal BZS does not reduce the track error substantially. Moreover, the configuration scheme of nudging parameters plays an important role in the track simulation, and different nudging parameter configuration scheme could make the root mean square errors (RMSEs) of simulated track by more than two times. Nevertheless, the optimal configuration scheme can reduce the track error effectively by maintaining the equilibrium between the two additional nudging terms in the prognostic equations in the buffer zone, whereas both the strong nudging scheme and the weak nudging scheme distort the track simulation of the Winnie. It is also found that the simulated weaker west Pacific subtropical high (WPSH), which leads to the turning of the TC ahead of time, is the reason for the track simulation error. A possible approach for reducing track simulation error of TCs is also discussed.     

Tropical-temperate interactions over southern Africa simulated by a regional climate model

The Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) forced by ERA40 re-analyses, is used to examine, at regional scale, the role of key features of the local atmospheric circulation on the origin and development of Tropical Temperate Troughs (TTTs) representing a major contribution to South African rainfall during austral summer. A cluster analysis applied on 1971–2000 ERA40 and WRF simulated daily outgoing longwave radiation reveals for the November–February season three coherent regimes characteristic of TTTs over the region. Analyses of WRF simulated TTTs suggest that their occurrence is primarily linked with mid-latitude westerly waves and their phasing. Ensemble experiments designed for the case of austral summer 1996/1997 allow to examine the reproducibility of TTT events. The results obtained illustrate the importance of westerly waves phasing regarding the persistence of rain-producing continental TTT events. Moreover, oceanic surface conditions prevailing over the Agulhas current regions of the South West Indian Ocean (SWIO) are also found to influence TTT persistence for regional experiments with an oceanic mixed layer, warmer sea surface temperatures being associated with increased moisture advection from the SWIO where latent heat release is enhanced, favoring baroclinic instability and thus sustaining convection activity locally.     

High-resolution simulations of West African climate using regional climate model (RegCM3) with different lateral boundary conditions

To downscale climate change scenarios, long-term regional climatologies employing global model forcing are needed for West Africa. As a first step, this work examines present-day integrations (1981–2000) with a regional climate model (RCM) over West Africa nested in both reanalysis data and output from a coupled atmospheric–ocean general circulation model (AOGCM). Precipitation and temperature from both simulations are compared to the Climate Research Unit observations. Their spatial distributions are shown to be realistic. Annual cycles are considerably correlated. Simulations are also evaluated with respect to the driving large-scale fields. RCM offers some improvements compared to the AOGCM driving field. Evaluation of seasonal precipitation biases reveals that RCM dry biases are highest on June–August around mountains. They are associated to cold biases in temperature which, in turn, are connected to wet biases in precipitation outside orographic zones. Biases brought through AOGCM forcing are relatively low. Despite these errors, the simulations produce encouraging results and show the ability of the AOGCM to drive the RCM for future projections.     

Impact of soil moisture initialisation and lateral boundary conditions on regional climate model simulations of the West African Monsoon

In this study, we use the Met Office Hadley Centre regional climate model HadRM3P to investigate the relative impact of initial soil moisture (SM) and lateral boundary conditions (LBC) on simulations of the West African Monsoon. Soil moisture data that are in balance with our particular model are generated using a 10-year (1997–2007) simulation of HadRM3P nested within the NCEP-R2 reanalyses. Three sets of experiments are then performed for six April–October seasons (2000 and 2003–2007) to assess the sensitivity to different sources of initial SM data and lateral boundary data. The results show that the only impact of the initial SM anomalies on precipitation is to generate small random intraseasonal, interannual and spatial variations. In comparison, the influence of the LBC dominates both in terms of magnitude and spatial coherency. Nevertheless, other sources of initial SM data or other models may respond differently, so it is recommended that the robustness of this conclusion is established using other model configurations.     

Sources of systematic errors in the climatology of a regional climate model over Europe

 Two ten-year simulations made with a European regional climate model (RCM) are compared. They are driven by the same observed sea surface temperatures but use different lateral boundary forcing. For one simulation, RCM AMIP, this forcing is obtained from a standard integration of a global general circulation model (GCM AMIP), whereas for the other simulation, RCM ASSIM, it is derived from a time series of operational analyses. The archive of analysis fields (surface pressure plus winds and temperatures on various pressure levels) is not sufficiently comprehensive to provide directly the full set of driving fields required for the RCM (in particular, no moisture fields are present), so these are obtained via a GCM integration, GCM ASSIM, in which the model is continuously relaxed towards the analysis fields using a data assimilation technique. Errors in RCM AMIP can arise either from the internal RCM physics or from errors in the lateral boundary forcing inherited from GCM AMIP. Errors in RCM ASSIM can arise from the internal RCM physics or the boundary moisture forcing but not from the driving circulation. Although previous studies have considered RCM integrations driven either by output from standard GCM integrations or operational analyses, our study is the first to compare parallel integrations of each type. This allows the total systematic error in an RCM integration driven by standard GCM output to be partitioned into components arising from the driving circulation and the internal RCM physics. These components indicate the scope for reducing regional simulation biases by improving either the driving GCM or the RCM itself. The results relate mainly to elements of surface climate likely to be influenced by both the driving circulation and regional physical processes operating in the RCM. For cloud cover, errors are found to arise largely from the internal RCM physics. Values are too low despite a positive relative humidity bias, indicating shortcomings in the parametrisation scheme used to calculate cloud cover. In summer, surface temperature and precipitation errors are also explained principally by regional processes. For example excessive solar heating leads to anomalously high surface temperatures over southern Europe and excessive drying of the soil reduces precipitation in the south eastern sector of the domain. The lateral boundary forcing reduces precipitation in the south eastern sector of the domain. The lateral boundary forcing also exerts some influence, mainly via a tropospheric cold bias which partially offsets the warming over southern Europe and also increases precipitation. In other seasons the lateral boundary forcing and the regional physics both contribute significantly to the errors in surface temperature and precipitation. In winter the boundary forcing (apart from moisture) is responsible for about 60% of the total error variance for temperature and about 40% for precipitation, due to the cold bias and circulation errors such as a southward shift in the storm track. The remaining errors arise from the regional physics, although for precipitation an excessive supply of moisture from the lateral boundaries also contributes. The skill of the mesoscale component of the surface temperature and precipitation distributions exceeds previous estimates, due to more realistic observed climatology. The mesoscale patterns are very similar in the two RCM simulations indicating that errors in the simulation of fine scale detail arise mainly from inadequate representations of local forcings rather than errors in the large-scale circulation. Circulation errors in RCM AMIP (e.g. cold bias, southward shift of storm track) are also present in GCM AMIP, but are largely absent in RCM ASSIM except in summer. This confirms evidence from previous work that the key to reducing most circulation errors in the RCM lies in improving the driving GCM. Regional processes only make a major contribution to circulation errors in summer, when reduced advection from the boundaries allows errors in surface temperature to be transmitted more effectively into the troposphere. Finally, we find evidence of error balances in the GCM which act to minimise biases in important climatological variables. This reflects tuning of the model physics at GCM resolution. In order to achieve simultaneous optimisation of the RCM and GCM at widely differing resolutions it may be necessary to introduce explicit scale dependences into some aspects of the physics. Received: 17 September 1997/Accepted: 10 March 1998     

Evaluation of atmospheric boundary layer characteristics simulated by the regional model

Carried out is the comparison of the temporal courses of temperature and wind speed at different levels as well as of the wind and temperature profiles in the atmospheric boundary layer obtained from the WRF regional model forecasts and using the upper-air in situ and remote measurements in Moscow region. The errors in temperature and wind speed forecasts at different levels are computed as well as the statistical estimates of the forecast of temperature inversions, atmospheric stratification types, and monthly mean wind speed profiles on the basis of model forecasts and acoustic sounding.     

Testing the downscaling ability of a one-way nested regional climate model in regions of complex topography

The downscaling ability of a one-way nested regional climate model (RCM) is evaluated over a region subjected to strong surface forcing: the west of North America. The sensitivity of the results to the horizontal resolution jump and updating frequency of the lateral boundary conditions are also evaluated. In order to accomplish this, a perfect-model approach nicknamed the Big-Brother Experiment (BBE) was followed. The experimental protocol consists of first establishing a virtual-reality reference climate over a fairly large area by using the Canadian RCM with grid spacing of 45 km nested within NCEP analyses. The resolution of the simulated climate is then degraded to resemble that of operational general circulation models (GCM) or observation analyses by removing small scales; the filtered fields are then used to drive the same regional model, but over a smaller sub-area. This set-up permits a comparison between two simulations of the same RCM over a common region. The Big-Brother Experiment has been carried out for four winter months over the west coast of North America. The results show that complex topography and coastline have a strong positive impact on the downscaling ability of the one-way nesting technique. These surface forcings, found to be responsible for a large part of small-scale climate features, act primarily locally and yield good climate reproducibility. Precipitation over the Rocky Mountains region is a field in which such effect is found and for which the nesting technique displays significant downscaling ability. The best downscaling ability is obtained when the ratio of spatial resolution between the nested model and the nesting fields is less than 12, and when the update frequency is more than twice a day. Decreasing the spatial resolution jump from a ratio of 12 to six has more benefits on the climate reproducibility than a reduction of spatial resolution jump from two to one. Also, it is found that an update frequency of four times a day leads to a better downscaling than twice a day when a ratio of spatial resolution of one is used. On the other hand, no improvement was found by using high-temporal resolution when the driving fields were degraded in terms of spatial resolution. Figure legends were missing in original article. Climate Dynamics (2005) 23: 473-493. The complete article is given here. DOI: 10.1007/s00382-004-0438-5     

Testing the downscaling ability of a one-way nested regional climate model in regions of complex topography

The downscaling ability of a one-way nested regional climate model (RCM) is evaluated over a region subjected to strong surface forcing: the west of North America. The sensitivity of the results to the horizontal resolution jump and updating frequency of the lateral boundary conditions are also evaluated. In order to accomplish this, a perfect-model approach nicknamed the Big-Brother Experiment (BBE) was followed. The experimental protocol consists of first establishing a virtual-reality reference climate over a fairly large area by using the Canadian RCM with grid spacing of 45 km nested within NCEP analyses. The resolution of the simulated climate is then degraded to resemble that of operational general circulation models (GCM) or observation analyses by removing small scales; the filtered fields are then used to drive the same regional model, but over a smaller sub-area. This set-up permits a comparison between two simulations of the same RCM over a common region. The Big-Brother Experiment has been carried out for four winter months over the west coast of North America. The results show that complex topography and coastline have a strong positive impact on the downscaling ability of the one-way nesting technique. These surface forcings, found to be responsible for a large part of small-scale climate features, act primarily locally and yield good climate reproducibility. Precipitation over the Rocky Mountains region is a field in which such effect is found and for which the nesting technique displays significant downscaling ability. The best downscaling ability is obtained when the ratio of spatial resolution between the nested model and the nesting fields is less than 12, and when the update frequency is more than twice a day. Decreasing the spatial resolution jump from a ratio of 12 to six has more benefits on the climate reproducibility than a reduction of spatial resolution jump from two to one. Also, it is found that an update frequency of four times a day leads to a better downscaling than twice a day when a ratio of spatial resolution of one is used. On the other hand, no improvement was found by using high-temporal resolution when the driving fields were degraded in terms of spatial resolution.     

Simulations of the Indian summer monsoon using a nested regional climate model: domain size experiments

Seasonal simulations of the Indian summer monsoon using a 50-km regional climate model (RCM) are described. Results from three versions of the RCM distinguished by different domain sizes are compared against those of the driving global general circulation model (AGCM). Precipitation over land is 20% larger in the RCMs due to stronger vertical motions arising from finer horizontal resolution. The resulting increase in condensational heating helps to intensify the monsoon trough relative to the AGCM. The RCM precipitation distributions show a strong orographically forced mesoscale component (similar in each version). This component is not present in the AGCM. The RCMs produce two qualitatively realistic intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs) associated respectively with monsoon depressions which propagate northwestward from the Bay of Bengal and repeated northward migrations of the regional tropical convergence zone. The RCM simulations are relatively insensitive to domain size in several respects: (1) the mean bias relative to the AGCM is similar for all three domains; (2) the variability simulated by the RCM is strongly correlated with that of the driving AGCM on both daily and seasonal time scales, even for the largest domain; (3) the mesoscale features and ISOs are not damped by the relative proximity of the lateral boundaries in the version with the smallest domain. Results (1) and (2) contrast strongly with a previous study for Europe carried out with the same model, probably due to inherent differences between mid-latitude and tropical dynamics.     

Soil-precipitation feedbacks during the South American Monsoon as simulated by a regional climate model

We summarize the recent progress in regional climate modeling in South America with the Rossby Centre regional atmospheric climate model (RCA3-E), with emphasis on soil moisture processes. A series of climatological integrations using a continental scale domain nested in reanalysis data were carried out for the initial and mature stages of the South American Monsoon System (SAMS) of 1993–92 and were analyzed on seasonal and monthly timescales. The role of including a spatially varying soil depth, which extends to 8 m in tropical forest, was evaluated against the standard constant soil depth of the model of about 2 m, through two five member ensemble simulations. The influence of the soil depth was relatively weak, with both beneficial and detrimental effects on the simulation of the seasonal mean rainfall. Secondly, two ensembles that differ in their initial state of soil moisture were prepared to study the influence of anomalously dry and wet soil moisture initial conditions on the intraseasonal development of the SAMS. In these simulations the austral winter soil moisture initial condition has a strong influence on wet season rainfall over feed back upon the monsoon, not only over the Amazon region but in subtropical South America as well. Finally, we calculated the soil moisture–precipitation coupling strength through comparing a ten member ensemble forced by the same space–time series of soil moisture fields with an ensemble with interactive soil moisture. Coupling strength is defined as the degree to which the prescribed boundary conditions affect some atmospheric quantity in a climate model, in this context a quantification of the fraction of atmospheric variability that can be ascribed to soil moisture anomalies. La Plata Basin appears as a region where the precipitation is partly controlled by soil moisture, especially in November and January. The continental convective monsoon regions and subtropical South America appears as a region with relatively high coupling strength during the mature phase of monsoon development.     

Validation of the nesting technique in a regional climate model and sensitivity tests to the resolution of the lateral boundary conditions during summer

The ability of a regional climate model (RCM) to successfully reproduce the fine-scale features of a regional climate during summer is evaluated using an approach nick-named the “Big-Brother Experiment” (BBE). The BBE establishes a reference virtual-reality climate with a RCM applied on a large and high-resolution domain: this simulation is called the Big-Brother (BB) simulation. This reference simulation is then downgraded by filtering small-scale features that are unresolved in today’s global objective analyses. The resulting fields are then used as nesting data to drive the same RCM, which is integrated, at the same high resolution as the BB, only over a sub-area of the larger BB domain, hence, producing the Little-Brother simulation (LB). With the BBE approach, differences between the two simulated climates (BB and LB) can be unambiguously attributed to errors associated with the dynamical downscaling technique, and not to model errors or observational limitations. The current study focuses on the summer over the West Coast of North America. Results of the stationary and transient parts of the fields, decomposed by horizontal scales, are presented for the month of July, for 5 consecutive years (1990–1994). Three degrees of spatial filtering (roughly equivalent to the global spectral resolution of T30, T60 and T360) as well as two update intervals (3 and 6 h) of the lateral boundary conditions (LBC) have been employed. This study establishes that the maximum acceptable resolution of driving data for summer is T30, with improved results employing the T60 resolution of LBC. There is little improvement by reducing the time interval from 6 h to 3 h. These results are generally in agreement with previous studies carried out for winter. The good correlation between LB and BB simulations is more difficult to achieve during the summer season, mostly due to weaker control exerted by LBC. Poor correlations are more pronounced for the transient parts than they are for the stationary parts of the fields. This is especially true for the precipitation field, where differences can be attributed to higher temporal variability during the summer due to the presence of convection.     

Present climate and climate change over North America as simulated by the fifth-generation Canadian regional climate model

The fifth-generation Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5) was used to dynamically downscale two Coupled Global Climate Model (CGCM) simulations of the transient climate change for the period 1950–2100, over North America, following the CORDEX protocol. The CRCM5 was driven by data from the CanESM2 and MPI-ESM-LR CGCM simulations, based on the historical (1850–2005) and future (2006–2100) RCP4.5 radiative forcing scenario. The results show that the CRCM5 simulations reproduce relatively well the current-climate North American regional climatic features, such as the temperature and precipitation multiannual means, annual cycles and temporal variability at daily scale. A cold bias was noted during the winter season over western and southern portions of the continent. CRCM5-simulated precipitation accumulations at daily temporal scale are much more realistic when compared with its driving CGCM simulations, especially in summer when small-scale driven convective precipitation has a large contribution over land. The CRCM5 climate projections imply a general warming over the continent in the 21st century, especially over the northern regions in winter. The winter warming is mostly contributed by the lower percentiles of daily temperatures, implying a reduction in the frequency and intensity of cold waves. A precipitation decrease is projected over Central America and an increase over the rest of the continent. For the average precipitation change in summer however there is little consensus between the simulations. Some of these differences can be attributed to the uncertainties in CGCM-projected changes in the position and strength of the Pacific Ocean subtropical high pressure.     

Climate change projections for Greek viticulture as simulated by a regional climate model

Theoretical and Applied Climatology - Viticulture represents an important economic activity for Greek agriculture. Winegrapes are cultivated in many areas covering the whole Greek territory, due to...     

Climate and climate change in western canada as simulated by the Canadian regional climate model

Abstract

A þrst climate simulation performed with the novel Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) is presented. The CRCM is based on fully elastic non‐hydrostatic þeld equations, which are solved with an efþcient semi‐implicit semi‐Lagrangian (SISL) marching algorithm, and on the parametrization package of subgrid‐scale physical effects of the second‐generation Canadian Global Climate Model (GCMII). Two 5‐year integrations of the CRCM nested with GCMII simulated data as lateral boundary conditions are made for conditions corresponding to current and doubled CO₂ scenarios. For these simulations the CRCM used a grid size of 45 km on a polar‐stereographic projection, 20 scaled‐height levels and a time step of 15 min; the nesting GCMII has a spectral truncation of T32, 10 hybrid‐pressure levels and a time step of 20 min. These simulations serve to document: (1) the suitability of the SISL numerical scheme for regional climate modelling, (2) the use of GCMII physics at much higher resolution than in the nesting model, (3) the ability of the CRCM to add realistic regional‐scale climate information to global model simulations, and (4) the climate of the CRCM compared to that of GCMII under two greenhouse gases (GHG) scenarios.