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An evaluation of the variable-resolution CESM for modeling California's climate

Journal Article · · Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2015MS000559· OSTI ID:1258593
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2]
  1. Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
  2. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
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In this paper, the recently developed variable-resolution option within the Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) is assessed for long-term regional climate modeling of California at 0.25° (~ 28 km) and 0.125° (~ 14 km) horizontal resolutions. The mean climatology of near-surface temperature and precipitation is analyzed and contrasted with reanalysis, gridded observational data sets, and a traditional regional climate model (RCM)—the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Statistical metrics for model evaluation and tests for differential significance have been extensively applied. VR-CESM tended to produce a warmer summer (by about 1–3°C) and overestimated overall winter precipitation (about 25%–35%) compared to reference data sets when sea surface temperatures were prescribed. Increasing resolution from 0.25° to 0.125° did not produce a statistically significant improvement in the model results. By comparison, the analogous WRF climatology (constrained laterally and at the sea surface by ERA-Interim reanalysis) was ~1–3°C colder than the reference data sets, underestimated precipitation by ~20%–30% at 27 km resolution, and overestimated precipitation by ~ 65–85% at 9 km. Overall, VR-CESM produced comparable statistical biases to WRF in key climatological quantities. Moreover, this assessment highlights the value of variable-resolution global climate models (VRGCMs) in capturing fine-scale atmospheric processes, projecting future regional climate, and addressing the computational expense of uniform-resolution global climate models.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER) (SC-23). Climate and Environmental Sciences Division; University of California, Davis California (United States)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1258593
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1571061
Journal Information:
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Journal Name: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 8; ISSN 1942-2466
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Assessing Mountains as Natural Reservoirs With a Multimetric Framework journal September 2018
Regional Climate Simulations With the Community Earth System Model journal June 2018
Microclimate–forage growth linkages across two strongly contrasting precipitation years in a Mediterranean catchment journal October 2019
Projecting 21st century snowpack trends in western USA mountains using variable-resolution CESM journal March 2017
Future projections of wind patterns in California with the variable-resolution CESM: a clustering analysis approach journal January 2020
Simulating surface energy fluxes using the variable-resolution Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) journal February 2019
California's Drought of the Future: A Midcentury Recreation of the Exceptional Conditions of 2012–2017 journal November 2018
Anthropogenic Warming Impacts on Today's Sierra Nevada Snowpack and Flood Risk: WARMING IMPACTS ON SNOWPACK AND FLOOD RISK journal June 2018
Exploring a Variable‐Resolution Approach for Simulating Regional Climate Over the Tibetan Plateau Using VR‐CESM journal April 2019
Sensitivity of Mountain Hydroclimate Simulations in Variable‐Resolution CESM to Microphysics and Horizontal Resolution journal June 2018
The Impact of Rimed Ice Hydrometeors on Global and Regional Climate journal June 2019
Evaluation of Implicit‐Explicit Additive Runge‐Kutta Integrators for the HOMME‐NH Dynamical Core journal December 2019
Climate, ecosystems, and planetary futures: The challenge to predict life in Earth system models journal February 2018
Evaluation of Implicit-Explicit Additive Runge-Kutta Integrators for the HOMME-NH Dynamical Core text January 2019
Impacts of absorbing aerosol deposition on snowpack and hydrologic cycle in the Rocky Mountain region based on variable-resolution CESM (VR-CESM) simulations journal January 2018
Modeling extreme precipitation over East China with a global variable-resolution modeling framework (MPASv5.2): impacts of resolution and physics journal January 2019
Regional grid refinement in an Earth system model: impacts on the simulated Greenland surface mass balance journal January 2019

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