Assessment of the RegCM4 Performance in Simulating the Surface Radiation Budget and Hydrologic Balance Variables in South America

David Pareja-Quispe,Sergio Henrique Franchito,Julio Pablo Reyes Fernandez

doi:10.1007/s41748-021-00249-y

David Pareja-Quispe, Sergio Henrique Franchito + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41748-021-00249-y

Copy DOI

Abstract

The ability of the Regional Climate Model v4 (RegCM4) to simulate the surface radiation budget and hydrological balance variables over South America have been evaluated. For this purpose, a 34-year long simulation was carried out with the regional climate model RegCM4 over South America on the CORDEX domain. The model is forcing by ERA-Interim reanalysis. The results show that RegCM4 simulates the main patterns of the variables associated with the surface radiation budget and hydrological balance in the four seasons of the year compared to the observations (CLARA2 and CRU/PERSIANN). However, the cloudiness and surface radiation budget variables: Cloud Fraction Cover (CFC), net shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) radiation at surface are overestimated, mainly over the oceans. This is associated with the errors in the CFC due to the deficiency of the model in representing the low-level clouds. Some differences are also noted in the hydrological balance. The intensity and temporal evolution of precipitation, especially in the central and southern Amazon, may be associated with the selected domain, which fails to adequately represent the influence of the adjoining oceans. In northern and northeast parts, the differences are associated with deficiencies of RegCM4 in representing precipitation rates. Although the deficiencies, taking into account that the model is capable to reproduce the general pattern of some important variables of the surface radiation budget and hydrological cycle, it may be a useful tool for climate studies.

Highlights

The surface radiative balance and hydrologic cycle are responsible for various atmospheric processes such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, wind intensity and temperature, in the regional and global scales (Wallace and Hobbs 2006)
The Regional Climate Model used in the present study is the Regional Climate Model v4 (RegCM4) version 4.5.10 from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) (Giorgi et al 2012)
We conducted a 34-long year transient simulation to assess the ability of the RegCM4 to represent the surface radiative balance and the hydrological cycle over the CORDEX South America (SA) domain

Summary

Introduction

The surface radiative balance and hydrologic cycle are responsible for various atmospheric processes such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, wind intensity and temperature, in the regional and global scales (Wallace and Hobbs 2006). They are important in tropical regions since the amount of radiation and the rates of precipitation are higher. Some variables of the hydrological cycle is directly linked to the changes in the radiation balance and atmospheric temperature (Inglezakis et al 2016). The seasonal cycle of incident solar radiation in the central

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion