Abstract
This study evaluates the high-resolution climate simulation system CESM/WRF composed of the global climate model, Community Earth System Model (CESM) version 1, and the mesoscale model, Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF), for simulating high-resolution climatological temperature and precipitation in the tropics with complex terrain where temperature and precipitation are strongly inhomogeneous. The CESM/WRF climatological annual and seasonal precipitation and temperature simulations for years 1980–1999 at 10 km resolution for Sumatra and nearby regions are evaluated using observations and the global climate reanalysis ERA-Interim (ERA). CESM/WRF simulations at 10 km resolution are also compared with the downscaled reanalysis ERA/WRF at 10 km resolution. Results show that while temperature and precipitation patterns of the original CESM are very different from observations, those for CESM/WRF agree well with observations. Resolution and accuracies of simulations are significantly improved by dynamically downscaling CESM using WRF. CESM/WRF can simulate locations of very cold temperature at mountain peaks well. The high-resolution climate simulation system CESM/WRF can provide useful climate simulations at high resolution for Sumatra and nearby regions. CESM/WRF-simulated climatological temperature and precipitation at 10 km resolution agree well with ERA/WRF. This suggests the use of CESM/WRF for climate projections at high resolution for Sumatra and nearby regions.
Highlights
Climate change is an important threat to humanity. e global average temperature has been rising and has been projected to increase up to 2–5°C by the end of the twentyfirst century [1]
The coarse resolutions of global climate models (GCMs) are generally not sufficient to provide useful climate change information and impacts for a specific area, where climate and weather are inhomogeneous, e.g., the areas with complex terrain and in the tropics where precipitation is strongly driven by convection at finer scales than those can be resolved by GCMs
All are on the same Community Earth System Model (CESM)/ Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) inner grid
Summary
Climate change is an important threat to humanity. e global average temperature has been rising and has been projected to increase up to 2–5°C by the end of the twentyfirst century [1]. The coarse resolutions of GCMs are generally not sufficient to provide useful climate change information and impacts for a specific area, where climate and weather are inhomogeneous, e.g., the areas with complex terrain and in the tropics where precipitation is strongly driven by convection at finer scales than those can be resolved by GCMs. Indonesia’s Sumatra Island is in the tropics with the equator running through it and is one of the rainiest areas on Earth. Since Sumatra has complex terrain with high mountains and volcanoes and Advances in Meteorology temperature and precipitation are very inhomogeneous, numerical systems for simulating and projecting climate at high resolution are required for appropriately adapting to climate change and reducing climate change impacts. There are some previous climate simulation studies for Southeast Asia [3, 4] and for Indonesia [5], their simulations at 60 km resolution are too coarse to resolve climatological temperature and precipitation of Sumatra, as the results from this study will clearly show
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