Panama’s Current Climate Replicability in a Non-Hydrostatic Regional Climate Model Nested in an Atmospheric General Circulation Model

Reinhardt Pinzón,Hidetaka Sasaki,Noriko N Ishizaki,Tosiyuki Nakaegawa

doi:10.3390/atmos12121543

Abstract

To simulate the current climate, a 20-year integration of a non-hydrostatic regional climate model (NHRCM) with grid spacing of 5 and 2 km (NHRCM05 and NHRCM02, respectively) was nested within the AGCM. The three models did a similarly good job of simulating surface air temperature, and the spatial horizontal resolution did not affect these statistics. NHRCM02 did a good job of reproducing seasonal variations in surface air temperature. NHRCM05 overestimated annual mean precipitation in the western part of Panama and eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. NHRCM05 is responsible for this overestimation because it is not seen in MRI-AGCM. NHRCM02 simulated annual mean precipitation better than NHRCM05, probably due to a convection-permitting model without a convection scheme, such as the Kain and Fritsch scheme. Therefore, the finer horizontal resolution of NHRCM02 did a better job of replicating the current climatological mean geographical distributions and seasonal changes of surface air temperature and precipitation.

Highlights

Scientists and policymakers alike are requesting high-resolution estimates of global warming and its consequences in order to map out the changes and consequences in greater detail
Except for several grids, the bias of the surface air temperature simulated with NHRCM02 lies between −1 and 1 ◦ C
NHRCM05 did a good job of simulating surface air temperature, the biases in NHRCM05 are large compared to those in non-hydrostatic regional climate model (NHRCM) (Figure 2c)

Summary

Introduction

Scientists and policymakers alike are requesting high-resolution estimates of global warming and its consequences in order to map out the changes and consequences in greater detail. Even with fine grid spacing, this model did not adequately replicate extreme events and did not resolve the main mountain ranges or river basins, all of which must be depicted if climate projections are to be relevant for water resource and flood planning, agriculture, and other applications. To overcome these issues, a non-hydrostatic regional climate model (NHRCM) was used in order to simulate current climate in Panama.

Methods

Results

Conclusion