An Assessment of Nonhydrostatic and Hydrostatic Dynamical Cores at Seasonal Time Scales in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM)
In global atmospheric modeling, the differences between nonhydrostatic (NH) and hydrostatic (H) dynamical cores are negligible in dry simulations when grid spacing is larger than 10 km. However, recent studies suggest that those differences can be significant at far coarser resolution when moisture is included. To better understand how NH and H differences manifest in global fields, we perform and analyze an ensemble of 28 and 13 km seasonal simulations with the NH and H dynamical cores in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model global atmosphere model, where the differences between H and NH configurations are minimized. A set of idealized rising bubble experiments is also conducted to further investigate the differences. Although NH and H differences are not significant in global statistics and zonal averages, significant differences in precipitation amount and patterns are observed in parts of the tropics. The most prominent differences emerge near India and the Western Pacific in the boreal summer, and the central-southern Indian Ocean and Pacific in the boreal winter. Tropical differences influence surrounding regions through modification of the regional circulation and can propagate to the extratropics, leading to significant temperature and geopotential differences over the middle to high latitudes. While the dry bubble experiments show negligible deviation between H and NH dynamics until grid spacing is below 6.25 km, precipitation amount and vertical velocity are different in the moist case even at 25 km resolution.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- DE‐AC52‐07NA27344; AC52-07NA27344; NA0003525; AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 1845599
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1845600; OSTI ID: 1866177; OSTI ID: 1877155; OSTI ID: 1959320
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-JRNL-834575; SAND2022-9126J; e2021MS002805
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Journal Name: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems Vol. 14 Journal Issue: 2; ISSN 1942-2466
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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