Réseau canadien en modélisation et diagnostics du climat régional (MDCR)
Application & Achievement
CRCM spatial resolution is sufficiently high to properly represent climate processes of small dimensions such as cloud or storm formation, precipitation, evaporation and soil moisture. A regional climate model is a model nested into a Global Climate Model (GCM). One has to isolate a geographical area of the GCM and determine the boundary conditions of that region using the GCM. These boundary conditions are then used to drive the high resolution Regional Climate Model (RCM) located over the isolated area, which can be any area of the globe.
Also, the CRCM can be used to compensate for the lack of observations in remote areas, to generate chronological climate series or simulate future climate. CRCM spatial resolution is adequate to evaluate regional impacts of climate change. Hence, it means the CRCM is a performing tool available to government and other public or private entities concerned with climate change impacts. With simulations becoming sufficiently sophisticated and realistic, the users can then adopt strategies to mitigate the impacts (e.g. Kyoto protocol) and/or adapt to future climate change. Operational sectors and government services such as weather forecasting and environmental monitoring will also benefit from the progress made with the CRCM.
The CRCMD Network has worked with or currently works with partners such that Hydro-Québec, the Ministère Provincial du Développement durable, de l'Environnement et des Parcs, the Ministère Provincial des Ressources naturelles et de la Faune, Ministère Provincial de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, Meteorological Services of Canada, Natural Ressources Canada and Environment Canada. These partnerships allow climate simulations and validations to be performed in a variety of different ways. For example, the CRCM can be used to evaluate the hydrological regime at the catchment scale. In order to validate the model simulations, D. Caya and R. Laprise associated themselves with Hydro-Québec. Such initiatives are essential for research, both in terms of improving the tools and transferring technological innovations rapidly.
Achievement
During the past years, the CRCMD Network has been focusing on maintaining and improving the RCM, both in terms of efficiency and quality. CRCM performances at reproducing present climate, whether with respect to nesting strategies, convection schemes or coupling with ocean and sea ice models are thoroughly tested. This work is done in both the context of intercomparison with other RCMs and with reanalysis and observations and requires the use of protocols called diagnostics. Finally, all the time and resources invested in improving the model has for ultimate goal the production of reliable, high resolution climate change projections.
CRCM Update and Improvement
- Code standardization (Giguère et al.)
- Stationnary Forcing (topography) (Héreil et Laprise 1996)
- CRCM spectral nudging (Biner et al.; Riette 2000; Denis et al. 2001)
- Validation of Nesting Strategies (Denis et al. 2002; de Elia et al. 2003; Antic et al. 2004; Dimitrijevic et Laprise 2004)
- Convective Scheme (Paquin et al.)
- Diffusive-convective Hostelter lake model (Barrette 2000)
- Interactive Atmosphere-Ocean-Sea Ice Model (Faucher et al. 2002, 2004)
- Surface Scheme (Lucas-Picher et al. 2003; Sushama et al. 2004)
- Boundary Layer
- Energetics of African Easterly Waves (Hernandez-Díaz, 2002)
- Performance of CRCM 4 using GCM3 physics package (Quintanar 2003)
- Internal Variability (Caya et Biner, 2004, Lucas-Picher et
al. 2004)
Validation of CRCM
- Reproductibility and sensitivity of mesoscale phenomena (Denis et al.2002; de Elia et al. 2002)
- Intercomparison of CRCM with other RCMs (PIRCS) (Caya Biner, et al.)
- Use of hydrologic data from works on hydroelectricity (Frigon et al. 2001)
- Climate simulations in different areas around the globe with the CRCM (e.g. Canada, États-Unis, Mexique, Scandinavie, Afrique)
- Comparison with various climate databases (Côté, Frigon et al.)
Diagnostics
- Budget calculations (Bergeron; Paquin; Bielli et Laprise, 2004)
- Statistical tests (Côté et al.)
- Normalized scripts (Côté et al.)
- Climate Statistics (Côté et al.)
- Second Order Statistics (Côté et al.)
Climate Change Projections
- In 1997, the CRMC was used to perform the first climate change experiment at 45 km resolution over Western Canada (Laprise et al. 1998). The experiment was made of two 5 years integrations: one using current CO2 level and one using twice current CO2 concentration. These simulations were forced at the boundaries by two runs made with GCMii. This experiment highlighted the need for better parameterization in the CRCM, especially with respect to convection.
- In 1999, a second experiment was performed over the same domain and with the same resolution, but with a different convection scheme. This time, the model was integrated for the periods 1975-1984, 2040-2049 and 2080-2089 with three different level of CO2: current level, 2xCO2 and 3xCO2. Moreover, the period 1975-1984 was also integrated using spectral nudging. (see section data).
Références
Antic, S., R. Laprise, B. Denis, and R. de Elía,
2004: Testing the downscaling ability of a one-way nested regional
climate model in regions of complex topography. Clim. Dyn. (in press).
Barrette, N., and R. Laprise, 2002. Numerical modeling:
A complementary tool for studying CO2 emissions from hydroelectric
reservoirs. Global Biogeochem. Cycles , 16(4), 1128, 75 - 1-11 .
Bielli, S. and R. Laprise, 2004: Scale decomposition of
the water budget in a regional climate model. Research activities
in Atmospheric and Oceanic Modelling , WMO/TD, edited by J.
Côté,
April 2004, 5.3
Caya, D., and S. Biner, 2004: Internal variability of RCM simulations
over an annual cycle. Clim. Dyn. 22: 33-46.
de Elia, R., and R. Laprise, 2004: Diversity in probability
interpretations in weather and climate forecasting. Monthly Weather
Review (Accepted with modifications)
de Elía, R. and R. Laprise, 2003: Distribution-oriented
verification of limited-area models in a perfect-model framework. Mon.
Wea. Rev. 131: 2492-2509.
de Elía, R., R. Laprise and B. Denis, 2002: Forcasting skill
limits of nested, limited-area models: a perfect-model approach. Mon.
Wea. Rev. 130: 2006-2023.
de Élia, R., R. Laprise et B. Denis, 2002: Short-term
downscaling with a limited-area model: diagnostic verification in
aperfect-model approach. Research activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic
Modelling, edited by H. Ritchie, WMO/TD - No 1105, Report No. 32:
5.5-5.6
Dimitrijevic, M., and R. Laprise, 2004: Validation of the nesting
technique in a Regional Climate Model through sensitivity
tests to spatial resolution and the time interval of lateral boundary
conditions during summer. Accepted in Climate Dynamics.
Denis, B., R. Laprise, D. Caya et J. Côté,
2002: Downscaling ability of one-way-nested regional climate models:
The Big-Brother experiment. Clim. Dyn. 18, 627-646.
Denis, B., J. Côté et R. Laprise, 2002: Spectral
decomposition of two-dimensional atmospheric fields on limited-area
domains using discrete cosine transforms (DFT). Mon. Wea. Rev. 130:
1812-1829.
Denis, B., R. Laprise and D. Caya, 2003: Sensitivity of
a Regional Climate Model to the spatial resolution and temporal
updating frequency of the lateral boundary conditions. Clim. Dyn. , 20,
107-126 .
Faucher, M., D. Caya, J.-F. Saucier, and R. Laprise 2004: Sensitivity
of the CRCM atmospheric and the Gulf of St. Lawrence
ocean-ice models to each other. Atmos.-Ocean, 42 (2), 85-100.
Faucher, M., D. Caya, R. Laprise et F. Saucier, 2002: Interaction
between atmosphere and ocean-ice regional models over the Gulf of
St-Lawrence (Canada). Research activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic
Modelling, edited by H. Ritchie, WMO/TD - No 1105, Report No. 32:
7.9-7.10
Frigon, A., D. Caya, M. Slivitzky et D. Tremblay, 2002:
Investigation of the hydrologic cycle simulated by the Canadian
Regional
Climate Model over Québec/Labrador territory. In Advances in
Global Change Research, vol 10, Climatic Change: Implications for the
Hydrological Cycle and for Water Management, Ed. M. Beniston, Kluwer
Academic
Publishers (Dordrecht et Boston) 31-55.
Frigon, A., M. Slivitzky et D. Caya, 2002: Investigation of hydrology
simulated by the Canadian Regional Climate Model over Québec and
Labrador. Research activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic Modelling,
edited by H. Ritchie, WMO/TD - No 1105, Report No. 32: 7.11-7.12
Gachon P., F. J. Saucier et R. Laprise, 2002: Evaluation of summer-time
near-surface temperature and wind fields over Hudson Bay in a regional
atmospheric model. Research activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic
Modelling, edited by H. Ritchie, WMO/TD - No 1105, Report No. 32:
5.13-5.14
Héreil, P., et R. Laprise, 1996: Sensitivity of internal gravity
wave solutions to the timestep of a semi-implicit semi-Lagrangian
non-hydrostatic model. Mon. Wea. Rev. 124 (4), 972-999.
Hernández-Díaz, L., et R. Laprise, 2002: Energetics of
African Easterly Waves using the Canadian Regional Climate Model
(CRCM): A first approach. Research activities in Atmospheric and
Oceanic Modelling, edited by H. Ritchie, WMO/TD - No 1105, Report No.
32: 7.6-7.8
Laprise, R., D. Caya, A. Frigon, and D. Paquin, 2003: Current and
perturbed climate as simulated by the second-generation Canadian
Regional Climate Model (CRCM-II) over north-western North America.
Clim. Dyn. 21: 405-421.
Laprise, R, D. Caya, M. Giguère, G. Bergeron, H.
Côté, J.-P. Blanchet, G. J. Boer et N. A. McFarlane,
1998: Climate and Climate Change in Western Canada as simulated by
the Canadian Regional Climate Model, Atmos. Oc., 36 (2), 119-167.
Lorant, V., N. McFarlane and R. Laprise, 2002: A numerical study using
the Canadian Regional Climate Model for the (Baltex) PIDCAP period.
Boreal Environment Research 7(3), 203-210.
Lucas-Picher, P., D. Caya and S. Biner, 2004: RCM’s internal
variability as function of domain size. Research activities in
Atmospheric and Oceanic Modelling, WMO/TD, edited by J.
Côté, April 2004, 7.25-7.26
Lucas-Picher, P., V. K. Arora, D. Caya and R. Laprise, 2003.
Implementation of a large-scale variable velocity flow routing
algorithm in the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM). Atmos.-Ocean,
41(2), 139-153.
Lucas-Picher, P., V. Arora, D. Caya et R. Laprise, 2002: Incorporating
river routing in the Canadian Regional Climate Model. Research
activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic Modelling, edited by
H. Ritchie, WMO/TD - No 1105, Report No. 32: 7.29-7.30
Mukherjee, S., D. Caya et R. Laprise, 2002: Evaluting data
interpolation in moving sparse noisy data to a uniform grid. Research
activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic Modelling, edited by H. Ritchie,
WMO/TD - No 1105, Report No. 32: 1.44-1.45
Paquin, D. et D. Caya, 2002: Dealing with atmospheric water in a nested
RCM. Research activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic Modelling, edited
by H. Ritchie, WMO/TD - No 1105, Report No. 32: 7.33-7.34
Riette, S. et D. Caya, 2002: Sensitivity of short simulations to the
various parameters in the new CRCM spectral nudging. Research
activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic Modelling, edited by H. Ritchie,
WMO/TD - No 1105, Report No. 32: 7.39-7.40
Sushama, L., R. Laprise, D. Caya, M. Larocque and M. Slivitzky, 2004:
Variable-lag channel flow routing algorithm for climate models.
Research activities in Atmospheric and Oceanic Modelling , WMO/TD,
edited by J. Côté, April 2004