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North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) Linda O. Mearns

North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) Linda O. Mearns National Center for Atmospheric Research. 5 th Spring Runoff Conference Utah State University Logan, Utah April 2-3, 2009. The North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP).

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North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) Linda O. Mearns

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  1. North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) Linda O. Mearns National Center for Atmospheric Research 5th Spring Runoff Conference Utah State University Logan, Utah April 2-3, 2009

  2. The North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) Initiated in 2006, it is an international program that will serve the climate scenario needs of the United States, Canada, and northern Mexico. • Exploration of multiple uncertainties in regional • model and global climate model regional projections. • Development of multiple high resolution regional • climate scenarios for use in impacts assessments. • Further evaluation of regional model performance over North America. • Exploration of some remaining uncertainties in regional climate modeling • (e.g., importance of compatibility of physics in nesting and nested models). • Program has been funded by NOAA-OGP, NSF, DOE, USEPA-ORD – 4-year program www.narccap.ucar.edu

  3. NARCCAP - Team Linda O. Mearns, NCAR Ray Arritt, Iowa State, Dave Bader, LLNL, Wilfran Moufouma-Okia, Hadley Centre, Sébastien Biner, Daniel Caya, OURANOS, Phil Duffy, LLNL and Climate Central, Dave Flory, Iowa State, Filippo Giorgi, Abdus Salam ICTP, William Gutowski, Iowa State, Isaac Held, GFDL, Richard Jones, Hadley Centre, Bill Kuo, NCAR; René Laprise, UQAM, Ruby Leung, PNNL, Larry McDaniel, Seth McGinnis, Don Middleton, NCAR, Ana Nuñes, Scripps, Doug Nychka, NCAR, John Roads*, Scripps, Steve Sain, NCAR, Lisa Sloan, Mark Snyder, UC Santa Cruz, Ron Stouffer, GFDL, Gene Takle, Iowa State * Deceased June 2008

  4. Advantages of higher resolution North America at typical global climate model resolution Hadley Centre AOGCM (HadCM3), 2.5˚ (lat) x 3.75˚ (lon), ~ 280 km North America at 50 km grid spacing

  5. Regional climate models allow use of finer resolution • HadCM3 grid spacing is about 280 km. • To reduce the spacing to 50 km, we would need (280/50)3 = 175 times the computing power. • Proposal: Use a finer-scale model over only a limited region of interest.

  6. Regional Modeling Strategy Nested regional modeling technique • Global model provides: • initial conditions – soil moisture, sea surface temperatures, sea ice • lateral meteorological conditions (temperature, pressure, humidity) every 6-8 hours. • Large scale response to forcing (100s kms) • Regional model provides finer scale (10s km) response

  7. Physical Contexts for Regional Modeling • Regions with small irregular land masses (e.g., the Caribbean) • Complex topography (mountains) • Complex coastlines (e.g., Italy) • Heterogeneous landscapes

  8. NARCCAP Domain

  9. Organization of Program • Phase I: 25-year simulations using NCEP-Reanalysis boundary conditions (1979—2004) • Phase II: Climate Change Simulations • Phase IIa: RCM runs (50 km res.) nested in AOGCMs current and future • Phase IIb: Time-slice experiments at 50 km res. (GFDL and NCAR CAM3). For comparison with RCM runs. • Quantification of uncertainty at regional scales – probabilistic approaches • Scenario formation and provision to impacts community led by NCAR. • Opportunity for double nesting (over specific regions) to include participation of other RCM groups (e.g., for NOAA OGP RISAs, CEC, New York Climate and Health Project, U. Nebraska).

  10. Phase I All 6 RCMs have completed the reanalysis-driven runs (RegCM3, WRF, CRCM, ECPC RSM, MM5, HadRM3) Configuration: common North America domain (some differences due to horizontal coordinates) horizontal grid spacing 50 km boundary data from NCEP/DOE Reanalysis 2 boundaries, SST and sea ice updated every 6 hours

  11. NARCCAP PLAN – Phase II A2 Emissions Scenario GFDL CGCM3 HADCM3 CCSM CAM3 Time slice 50km GFDL Time slice 50 km Provide boundary conditions 2041-2070 future 1971-2000 current CRCM Quebec, Ouranos RegCM3 UC Santa Cruz ICTP HADRM3 Hadley Centre MM5 Iowa State/ PNNL RSM Scripps WRF NCAR/ PNNL

  12. GCM-RCM Matrix AOGCMS RCMs

  13. Global Time Slice / RCM Comparison at same resolution (50km) A2 Emissions Scenario GFDL AOGCM NCAR CCSM Six RCMS 50 km GFDL AGCM Time slice 50 km CAM3 Time slice 50km compare compare

  14. NARCCAP Project Timeline Phase IIa Current climate1 Future climate 1 Current and Future 2 Project Start AOGCM Boundaries available Phase 1 12/07 1/09 9/07 1/06 9/08 7/09 Archiving Procedures - Implementation Phase IIb Time slices

  15. The NARCCAP User Community • Three user groups: • Further dynamical or statistical downscaling • Regional analysis of NARCCAP results • Use results as scenarios for impacts studies • www.narccap.ucar.edu • To sign up as user, go to web site – contact Seth McGinnis, • mcginnis@ucar.edu

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