Use of Passive Tracers as a Diagnostic Tool in Coupled Model Simulations—Northern Hemisphere

AbstractAs the nonhydrostatic regional model of the Consortium for Small-Scale Modelling in Climate Mode (COSMO-CLM) is increasingly employed for studying the effects of urbanization on the environment, the authors extend its surface-layer parameterization by the Town Energy Budget (TEB) parameterization using the “tile approach” for a single urban class. The new implementation COSMO-CLM+TEB is used for a 1-yr reanalysis-driven simulation over Europe at a spatial resolution of 0.11° (~12 km) and over the area of Berlin at a spatial resolution of 0.025° (~2.8 km) for evaluating the new coupled model. The results on the coarse spatial resolution of 0.11° show that the standard and the new models provide 2-m temperature and daily precipitation fields that differ only slightly by from −0.1 to +0.2 K per season and ±0.1 mm day−1, respectively, with very similar statistical distributions. This indicates only a negligibly small effect of the urban parameterization on the model's climatology. Therefore, it is suggested that an urban parameterization may be omitted in model simulations on this scale. On the spatial resolution of 0.025° the model COSMO-CLM+TEB is able to better represent the magnitude of the urban heat island in Berlin than the standard model COSMO-CLM. This finding shows the importance of using the parameterization for urban land in the model simulations on fine spatial scales. It is also suggested that models could benefit from resolving multiple urban land use classes to better simulate the spatial variability of urban temperatures for large metropolitan areas on spatial scales below ~3 km.

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Investigating the mechanisms leading to the deglaciation of past continental northern hemisphere ice sheets with the CLIMBER–GREMLINS coupled model

Global and Planetary Change ◽

10.1016/j.gloplacha.2005.01.002 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 48 (4) ◽

pp. 253-273 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

Sylvie Charbit ◽

Masa Kageyama ◽

Didier Roche ◽

Catherine Ritz ◽

Gilles Ramstein

Keyword(s):

Northern Hemisphere ◽

Ice Sheets ◽

Coupled Model

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Discrepancies of surface temperature trends in the CMIP5 simulations and observations on the global and regional scales

Climate of the Past Discussions ◽

10.5194/cpd-9-6161-2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 9 (6) ◽

pp. 6161-6178 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

L. Zhao ◽

J. Xu ◽

A. M. Powell Jr.

Keyword(s):

Surface Temperature ◽

Linear Trend ◽

Time Windows ◽

Coupled Model ◽

Global Scale ◽

Polar Regions ◽

Cmip5 Model ◽

Model Simulations ◽

Temperature Trends ◽

North Polar

Abstract. Using the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) model simulations and two observational datasets, the surface temperature trends and their discrepancies have been examined. The temporal-spatial characteristics for the surface temperature trends are discussed. Different from a constant estimated linear trend for the entire simulation period of 1850–2012, a dynamical trend using running linear least squares fitting with the moving 10 yr time windows are calculated. The results show that the CMIP5 model simulations are generally in good agreement with the observational measurements for the global scale warming, but the temperature trends depend on the temporal change and the regional differences. Generally, contrary to the small discrepancies on the global scale, the large discrepancies are observed in the south- and north-polar regions and other sub-regions.

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CMIP6 multi-model projection of summer season expansion over the Northern Hemisphere land areas

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-6870 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Bo-Joung Park ◽

Seung-Ki Min

Keyword(s):

Northern Hemisphere ◽

High Latitude ◽

Coupled Model ◽

Arctic Region ◽

Summer Season ◽

Significant Advance ◽

Multiple Model ◽

North Asia ◽

Near Term

<p>Due to the ongoing robust global warming, summer season is expected to get warmer in future over the Northern Hemisphere (NH) land areas. This study examined how the summer season defined by local temperature-based thresholds would change during the 21st century under Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) multiple model simulations. The projection results relative to the current climatology (1995-2014) indicate the significant advance of summer onset and delay of withdrawal over all NH land areas except high latitude locations, with longer than 10 days of summer expansion even in the weakest scenario (SSP1-2.6) in the near-term future (2021-2040). The advance and delay of summer season timing become stronger in the mid-term (2041-2060) and long-term (2081-2020) future periods, ranging from about 10 days to a month depending on SSP scenarios. Largest summer expansion is observed in the middle latitudes, including Europe in high latitude, while the weakest changes are seen over North Asia. Canadian Arctic region is characterized by an asymmetric change with a small advance of summer onset but a relatively large delay in summer ending. CMIP6 models exhibit large inter-model differences, which increase from near-term to long-term future periods. Western North Asia region display larger inter-model difference in summer onset projections while Europe has the largest inter-model spread of summer withdrawal changes. Physical mechanisms associated with these regional and timing-dependent changes in the future summer season lengthening will be further examined.</p>

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Anthropogenic and Natural Contributions to the Lengthening of the Summer Season in the Northern Hemisphere

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli-d-17-0643.1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 31 (17) ◽

pp. 6803-6819 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Bo-Joung Park ◽

Yeon-Hee Kim ◽

Seung-Ki Min ◽

Eun-Pa Lim

Keyword(s):

Northern Hemisphere ◽

Coupled Model ◽

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation ◽

Summer Season ◽

Season Length ◽

The Past ◽

External Forcings ◽

Regional Trends ◽

Intercomparison Project

Observed long-term variations in summer season timing and length in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) continents and their subregions were analyzed using temperature-based indices. The climatological mean showed coastal–inland contrast; summer starts and ends earlier inland than in coastal areas because of differences in heat capacity. Observations for the past 60 years (1953–2012) show lengthening of the summer season with earlier summer onset and delayed summer withdrawal across the NH. The summer onset advance contributed more to the observed increase in summer season length in many regions than the delay of summer withdrawal. To understand anthropogenic and natural contributions to the observed change, summer season trends from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) multimodel simulations forced with the observed external forcings [anthropogenic plus natural forcing (ALL), natural forcing only (NAT), and greenhouse gas forcing only (GHG)] were analyzed. ALL and GHG simulations were found to reproduce the overall observed global and regional lengthening trends, but NAT had negligible trends, which implies that increased greenhouse gases were the main cause of the observed changes. However, ALL runs tend to underestimate the observed trend of summer onset and overestimate that of withdrawal, the causes of which remain to be determined. Possible contributions of multidecadal variabilities, such as Pacific decadal oscillation and Atlantic multidecadal oscillation, to the observed regional trends in summer season length were also assessed. The results suggest that multidecadal variability can explain a moderate portion (about ±10%) of the observed trends in summer season length, mainly over the high latitudes.

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Evaluation of a unique approach to high-resolution climate modeling using the Model for Prediction Across Scales – Atmosphere (MPAS-A) version 5.1

Geoscientific Model Development ◽

10.5194/gmd-12-3725-2019 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (8) ◽

pp. 3725-3743 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Allison C. Michaelis ◽

Gary M. Lackmann ◽

Walter A. Robinson

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

High Resolution ◽

Sea Ice ◽

Northern Hemisphere ◽

General Circulation ◽

Large Scale ◽

Southern Oscillation ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Coupled Model ◽

General Circulation Models

Abstract. We present multi-seasonal simulations representative of present-day and future environments using the global Model for Prediction Across Scales – Atmosphere (MPAS-A) version 5.1 with high resolution (15 km) throughout the Northern Hemisphere. We select 10 simulation years with varying phases of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and integrate each for 14.5 months. We use analyzed sea surface temperature (SST) patterns for present-day simulations. For the future climate simulations, we alter present-day SSTs by applying monthly-averaged temperature changes derived from a 20-member ensemble of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) general circulation models (GCMs) following the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 emissions scenario. Daily sea ice fields, obtained from the monthly-averaged CMIP5 ensemble mean sea ice, are used for present-day and future simulations. The present-day simulations provide a reasonable reproduction of large-scale atmospheric features in the Northern Hemisphere such as the wintertime midlatitude storm tracks, upper-tropospheric jets, and maritime sea-level pressure features as well as annual precipitation patterns across the tropics. The simulations also adequately represent tropical cyclone (TC) characteristics such as strength, spatial distribution, and seasonal cycles for most Northern Hemisphere basins. These results demonstrate the applicability of these model simulations for future studies examining climate change effects on various Northern Hemisphere phenomena, and, more generally, the utility of MPAS-A for studying climate change at spatial scales generally unachievable in GCMs.

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Analysis of the ENSO Cycle in the NCEP Coupled Forecast Model

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli4062.1 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 20 (7) ◽

pp. 1265-1284 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Qin Zhang ◽

Arun Kumar ◽

Yan Xue ◽

Wanqiu Wang ◽

Fei-Fei Jin

Keyword(s):

Model Simulation ◽

Southern Oscillation ◽

Coupled Model ◽

Coupled System ◽

Forecast Model ◽

Enso Cycle ◽

Positive Contribution ◽

Test Bed ◽

Model Simulations ◽

Thermocline Feedback

Abstract Simulations from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) coupled model are analyzed to document and understand the behavior of the evolution of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. The analysis is of importance for two reasons: 1) the coupled model used in this study is also used operationally to provide model-based forecast guidance on a seasonal time scale, and therefore, an understanding of the ENSO mechanism in this particular coupled system could also lead to an understanding of possible biases in SST predictions; and 2) multiple theories for ENSO evolution have been proposed, and coupled model simulations are a useful test bed for understanding the relative importance of different ENSO mechanisms. The analyses of coupled model simulations show that during the ENSO evolution the net surface heat flux acts as a damping mechanism for the mixed-layer temperature anomalies, and positive contribution from the advection terms to the ENSO evolution is dominated by the linear advective processes. The subsurface temperature–SST feedback, referred to as thermocline feedback in some theoretical literature, is found to be the primary positive feedback, whereas the advective feedback by anomalous zonal currents and the thermocline feedback are the primary sources responsible for the ENSO phase transition in the model simulation. The basic mechanisms for the model-simulated ENSO cycle are thus, to a large extent, consistent with those highlighted in the recharge oscillator. The atmospheric anticyclone (cyclone) over the western equatorial northern Pacific accompanied by a warm (cold) phase of the ENSO, as well as the oceanic Rossby waves outside of 15°S–15°N and the equatorial higher-order baroclinic modes, all appear to play minor roles in the model ENSO cycles.

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Intercomparison of temperature trends in IPCC CMIP5 simulations with observations, reanalyses and CMIP3 models

Geoscientific Model Development ◽

10.5194/gmd-6-1705-2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 6 (5) ◽

pp. 1705-1714 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

J. Xu ◽

L. Zhao ◽

Keyword(s):

Coupled Model ◽

Temperature Trend ◽

The Arctic ◽

Cmip5 Models ◽

Model Intercomparison ◽

Model Simulations ◽

Temperature Trends ◽

Intercomparison Project ◽

Stratospheric Cooling ◽

The Tropics

Abstract. On the basis of the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and the climate model simulations covering 1979 through 2005, the temperature trends and their uncertainties have been examined to note the similarities or differences compared to the radiosonde observations, reanalyses and the third Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) simulations. The results show noticeable discrepancies for the estimated temperature trends in the four data groups (radiosonde, reanalysis, CMIP3 and CMIP5), although similarities can be observed. Compared to the CMIP3 model simulations, the simulations in some of the CMIP5 models were improved. The CMIP5 models displayed a negative temperature trend in the stratosphere closer to the strong negative trend seen in the observations. However, the positive tropospheric trend in the tropics is overestimated by the CMIP5 models relative to CMIP3 models. While some of the models produce temperature trend patterns more highly correlated with the observed patterns in CMIP5, the other models (such as CCSM4 and IPSL_CM5A-LR) exhibit the reverse tendency. The CMIP5 temperature trend uncertainty was significantly reduced in most areas, especially in the Arctic and Antarctic stratosphere, compared to the CMIP3 simulations. Similar to the CMIP3, the CMIP5 simulations overestimated the tropospheric warming in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere and underestimated the stratospheric cooling. The crossover point where tropospheric warming changes into stratospheric cooling occurred near 100 hPa in the tropics, which is higher than in the radiosonde and reanalysis data. The result is likely related to the overestimation of convective activity over the tropical areas in both the CMIP3 and CMIP5 models. Generally, for the temperature trend estimates associated with the numerical models including the reanalyses and global climate models, the uncertainty in the stratosphere is much larger than that in the troposphere, and the uncertainty in the Antarctic is the largest. In addition, note that the reanalyses show the largest uncertainty in the lower tropical stratosphere, and the CMIP3 simulations show the largest uncertainty in both the south and north polar regions.

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