How does large-scale nudging in a regional climate model contribute to improving the simulation of weather regimes and seasonal extremes over North America?

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 929-948 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Lucas-Picher ◽  
Julien Cattiaux ◽  
Alexandre Bougie ◽  
René Laprise
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (12) ◽  
pp. 7231-7245
Author(s):  
F. F. Hattermann ◽  
S. Huang ◽  
O. Burghoff ◽  
P. Hoffmann ◽  
Z. W. Kundzewicz

Abstract. In our first study on possible flood damages under climate change in Germany, we reported that a considerable increase in flood related losses can be expected in future, warmer, climate. However, the general significance of the study was limited by the fact that outcome of only one Global Climate Model (GCM) was used as large scale climate driver, while many studies report that GCM models are often the largest source of uncertainty in impact modeling. Here we show that a much broader set of global and regional climate model combinations as climate driver shows trends which are in line with the original results and even give a stronger increase of damages.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn Jäkel ◽  
Johannes Stapf ◽  
Manfred Wendisch ◽  
Marcel Nicolaus ◽  
Wolfgang Dorn ◽  
...  

Abstract. For large scale and long term Arctic climate simulations appropriate parameterization of the surface albedo are required. Therefore, the sea ice surface (SIS) albedo parameterization of the coupled regional climate model HIRHAM–NAOSIM was examined against measurements performed during the joint ACLOUD (Arctic CLoud Observations Using airborne mea-surements during polar Day) and PASCAL (Physical feedbacks of Arctic boundary layer, Sea ice, Cloud and AerosoL) cam-paigns which were performed in May/June 2017 north of Svalbard. The SIS albedo parameterization was tested using measured quantities of the prognostic variables surface temperature and snow depth to calculate the surface albedo and the individual fractions of the ice surface subtypes (snow covered ice, bare ice, and melt ponds) derived from digital camera images taken onboard of the Polar 5/6 aircraft. Based on data gained during 12 flights, it was found that the range of parameterized SIS albedo for individual days is smaller than that of the measurements. This was attributed to the biased functional dependence of the SIS albedo parameterization on temperature. Furthermore, a temporal bias was observed with higher values compared to the modeled SIS albedo (0.88 compared to 0.84 for 29 May 2017) in the beginning of the campaign, and an opposite trend towards the end of the campaign (0.67 versus 0.83 for 25 June 2017). Furthermore, the surface type fraction parameterization was tested against the camera image product which revealed an agreement within 1 %. An adjustment of the variables, defining the parameterized SIS albedo, and additionally accounting for the cloud cover could reduce the root mean squared error from 0.14 to 0.04 for cloud free/broken cloud situations and from 0.06 to 0.05 for overcast conditions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 4637-4671
Author(s):  
K. Klehmet ◽  
B. Geyer ◽  
B. Rockel

Abstract. This study analyzes the added value of a regional climate model hindcast of CCLM compared to global reanalyses in providing a reconstruction of recent past snow water equivalent (SWE) for Siberia. Consistent regional climate data in time and space is necessary due to lack of station data in that region. We focus on SWE since it represents an important snow cover parameter in a region where snow has the potential to feed back to the climate of the whole Northern Hemisphere. The simulation was performed in a 50 km grid spacing for the period 1948 to 2010 using NCEP Reanalysis 1 as boundary forcing. Daily observational reference data for the period of 1987–2010 was obtained by the satellite derived SWE product of ESA DUE GlobSnow that enables a large scale assessment. The analyses includes comparisons of the distribution of snow cover extent, example time series of monthly SWE for January and April, regional characteristics of long-term monthly mean, standard deviation and temporal correlation averaged over subregions. SWE of CCLM is compared against the SWE information of NCEP-R1 itself and three more reanalyses (NCEP-R2, NCEP-CFSR, ERA-Interim). We demonstrate a significant added value of the CCLM hindcast during snow accumulation period shown for January for many subregions compared to SWE of NCEP-R1. NCEP-R1 mostly underestimates SWE during whole snow season. CCLM overestimates SWE compared to the satellite-derived product during April – a month representing the beginning of snow melt in southern regions. We illustrate that SWE of the regional hindcast is more consistent in time than ERA-Interim and NCEP-R2 and thus add realistic detail.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 849-859 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Berg ◽  
R. Döscher ◽  
T. Koenigk

Abstract. The performance of the Rossby Centre regional climate model RCA4 is investigated for the Arctic CORDEX (COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment) region, with an emphasis on its suitability to be coupled to a regional ocean and sea ice model. Large biases in mean sea level pressure (MSLP) are identified, with pronounced too-high pressure centred over the North Pole in summer of over 5 hPa, and too-low pressure in winter of a similar magnitude. These lead to biases in the surface winds, which will potentially lead to strong sea ice biases in a future coupled system. The large-scale circulation is believed to be the major reason for the biases, and an implementation of spectral nudging is applied to remedy the problems by constraining the large-scale components of the driving fields within the interior domain. It is found that the spectral nudging generally corrects for the MSLP and wind biases, while not significantly affecting other variables, such as surface radiative components, two-metre temperature and precipitation.


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