A climate modeling study over Northern Africa and the Mediterranean basin with multi-physics ensemble and coupling to a regional ocean modeling system

Abstract

We have developed a physics ensemble of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulations for the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa (MEMNA) regions. These simulations use different configurations for the cumulus, microphysics, surface layer, planetary boundary layer, and land surface schemes and are forced by the Community Earth System Model (CESM) General Circulation Model for the historical period 1979–1993. We have also created a complementary ensemble in which the WRF model is fully-coupled to the Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS) that simulates the dynamics of the entire Mediterranean Sea. Analysis of our ensembles reveals that the simulated precipitation and near surface temperature (T2) fields in WRF are largely influenced by the cumulus and the land surface schemes during the summer and winter seasons, respectively. The coupling of Weather Research and Forecasting to Regional Ocean Modelling System yields Mediterranean sea surface temperatures that are directly correlated with T2 and have higher spatial resolution than the global model. Meanwhile no significant difference is found between the atmospheric fields from the coupled and uncoupled runs because the Community Earth System Model sea surface temperatures over the Mediterranean, that are used for surface forcing in the uncoupled runs, are already in close agreement with both Regional Ocean Modelling System and observations. We conclude that our high-resolution coupled atmosphere-ocean modelling system is capable of producing climate data of good quality, and we identify those combinations of physics schemes that result in an acceptable level of bias that facilitates their use in future studies.