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Developing an Initial Framework for a Regional Earth System Model


EMSL Project ID
35201

Abstract

Predicting climate change at the regional scale is critically important for assessing climate change impacts and developing strategies for mitigation and adaptation. Regional climate models (RCMs) have been used as a means for understanding regional climate processes and downscaling global climate simulations to provide insights on regional climate change and impacts. To date, most RCMs do not have the ability to simulate earth system processes such as sea ice, ocean, carbon and nitrogen cycle, and their interactions, which are essential for addressing a wide range of science questions including the complex interactions between aerosols, clouds, and sea ice and their influence on climate change in the Arctic, and terrestrial processes, carbon cycle feedbacks, and climate change. This proposal aims to implement a framework that will allow the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to adopt existing earth system model components from the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) through the CCSM flux coupler. This is an important first step that will open up research opportunities for using WRF as a regional earth system model and for enhancing the existing earth system model components for skillful simulations at the regional scale.

Project Details

Project type
Exploratory Research
Start Date
2009-10-14
End Date
2010-10-17
Status
Closed

Team

Principal Investigator

Lai-Yung Ruby Leung
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Team Members

Maoyi Huang
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Samson Hagos
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

William Gustafson
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Douglas Baxter
Institution
Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory