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Title: 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. With only prescribed sea surface temperatures, 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. 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. 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:
Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division; University of California, Davis California (United States)
Grant/Contract Number:
CA-D-LAW-2203-H; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1258593
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1571061
Journal Information:
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Vol. 8, Issue 1; ISSN 1942-2466
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 52 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (10)

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
Climate, ecosystems, and planetary futures: The challenge to predict life in Earth system models journal February 2018
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
Evaluation of Implicit-Explicit Additive Runge-Kutta Integrators for the HOMME-NH Dynamical Core text January 2019

Figures / Tables (20)

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