Multi-resolution climate modelling with the AWI Climate Model (AWI-CM)

The recently established AWI Climate Model (AWI-CM), a coupled configuration of the Finite Element Sea Ice-Ocean Model (FESOM) with the atmospheric model ECHAM6, uses a novel multi-resolution approach: Its ocean component builds on a finite element dynamical core supporting unstructured triangular surface grids, allowing to distribute the grid points in a flexible manner. This allows to concentrate resolution in dynamically important regions, with a continuous transition zone to the coarser resolution in other areas. The model is an ideal tool to study the influence of explicit resolution of smaller scales in dedicated experiments. The unique – spatially seamless – approach might also be of benefit when it comes to temporally seamless prediction, bridging the gap between numerical weather prediction and climate models. A first benchmark set-up of AWI-CM with moderate resolution in the atmosphere (T63) and 25km in key ocean areas, e.g. around the equator, achieved a similar overall simulation performance in a long control simulation compared to well-established CMIP5 models. In particular, the (isotropically) increased equatorial resolution considerably increased the realism of TIW activity and ENSO-related variability compared to standard resolutions. The potential of AWI-CM is further exploited within the EU project PRIMAVERA in the HighResMIP of CMIP6, where we plan to contribute simulations with eddy-resolving resolutions (1/12° or 9-10 km) in key areas of the global ocean, such as the Gulf Stream-North Atlantic Current region, the Agulhas retroflection zone, or the Arctic basin. First simulations show distinct improvements with respect to the development of deep temperature and salinity biases in the North Atlantic Ocean and an overall improvement of surface biases. At even higher resolutions of 4.5 km locally in the Arctic, linear kinematic features emerge in the simulated sea ice distribution with potentially strong impacts on air-sea fluxes in the coupled system. Although the tested set-ups are computationally very demanding (with numbers of grid points comparable to a regular 0.25° grid), the throughput is high at about 8 simulated years per day because of high scalability. In addition, we are about to finish the development of a finite volume version of the ocean model code (FESOM 2). It is already faster than the original FESOM version by a factor of two to three, which will further enlarge the set of computationally feasible applications

Designing variable ocean model resolution based on the observed ocean variability

If unstructured meshes are refined to locally represent eddy dynamics in ocean circulation models, a practical question arises on how to vary the resolution and where to deploy the refinement. We propose to use the observed sea surface height variability as the refinement criterion. We explore the utility of this method (i) in a suite of idealized experiments simulating a wind-driven double gyre flow in a stratified circular basin and (ii) in simulations of global ocean circulation performed with FESOM. Two practical approaches of mesh refinement are compared. In the first approach the uniform refinement is confined within the areas where the observed variability exceeds a given threshold. In the second one the refinement varies linearly following the observed variability. The resolution is fixed in time. For the double gyre case it is shown that the variability obtained in a high-resolution reference run can be well captured on variable-resolution meshes if they are refined where the variability is high and additionally upstream the jet separation point. The second approach of mesh refinement proves to be more beneficial in terms of improvement downstream the midlatitude jet. Similarly, in global ocean simulations the mesh refinement based on the observed variability helps the model to simulate high variability at correct locations. The refinement also leads to a reduced bias in the upper-ocean temperatur

Ocean Modeling on a Mesh With Resolution Following the Local Rossby Radius

We discuss the performance of the Finite Element Ocean Model (FESOM) on locally eddy-resolving global unstructured meshes. In particular, the utility of the mesh design approach whereby mesh horizontal resolution is varied as half the Rossby radius in most of the model domain is explored. Model simulations on such a mesh (FESOM-XR) are compared with FESOM simulations on a smaller-size mesh, where refinement depends only on the pattern of observed variability (FESOM-HR). We also compare FESOM results to a simulation of the ocean model of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPIOM) on a tripolar regular grid with refinement toward the poles, which uses a number of degrees of freedom similar to FESOM-XR. The mesh design strategy, which relies on the Rossby radius and/or the observed variability pattern, tends to coarsen the resolution in tropical and partly subtropical latitudes compared to the regular MPIOM grid. Excessive variations of mesh resolution are found to affect the performance in other nearby areas, presumably through dissipation that increases if resolution is coarsened. The largest improvement shown by FESOM-XR is a reduction of the surface temperature bias in the so-called North-West corner of the North Atlantic Ocean where horizontal resolution was increased dramatically. However, other biases in FESOM-XR remain largely unchanged compared to FESOM-HR. We conclude that resolving the Rossby radius alone (with two points per Rossby radius) is insufficient, and that careful use of a priori information on eddy dynamics is required to exploit the full potential of ocean models on unstructured meshes

Assessment of extreme hydrological conditions in the Bothnian Bay, Baltic Sea, and the impact of the nuclear power plant “Hanhikivi-1” on the local thermal regime

The results of the study aimed to assess the influence of future nuclear power plant “Hanhikivi-1” upon the local thermal conditions in the Bothnian Bay in the Baltic Sea are presented. A number of experiments with different numerical models were also carried out in order to estimate the extreme hydro-meteorological conditions in the area of the construction. The numerical experiments were fulfilled both with analytically specified external forcing and with real external forcing for 2 years: a cold year (2010) and a warm year (2014). The study has shown that the extreme values of sea level and water temperature and the characteristics of wind waves and sea ice in the vicinity of the future nuclear power plant can be significant and sometimes catastrophic. Permanent release of heat into the marine environment from an operating nuclear power plant will lead to a strong increase in temperature and the disappearance of ice cover within a 2 km vicinity of the station. These effects should be taken into account when assessing local climate changes in the future

On the role of horizontal resolution over the Tibetan Plateau in the REMO regional climate model

A number of studies have shown that added value is obtained by increasing the horizontal resolution of a regional climate model to capture additional fine-scale weather processes. However, the mechanisms leading to this added value are different over areas with complicated orographic features, such as the Tibetan Plateau (TP). To determine the role that horizontal resolution plays over the TP, a detailed comparison was made between the results from the REMO regional climate model at resolutions of 25 and 50 km for the period 1980–2007. The model was driven at the lateral boundaries by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Interim Reanalysis data. The experiments differ only in representation of topography, all other land parameters (e.g., vegetation characteristics, soil texture) are the same. The results show that the high-resolution topography affects the regional air circulation near the ground surface around the edge of the TP, which leads to a redistribution of the transport of atmospheric water vapor, especially over the Brahmaputra and Irrawaddy valleys—the main water vapor paths for the southern TP—increasing the amount of atmospheric water vapor transported onto the TP by about 5. This, in turn, significantly decreases the temperature at 2 m by > 1.5 °C in winter in the high-resolution simulation of the southern TP. The impact of topography on the 2 m temperature over the TP is therefore by influencing the transport of atmospheric water vapor in the main water vapor paths. © 2018 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Natur

Benefits of simulating precipitation characteristics over Africa with a regionally-coupled atmosphere–ocean model

High-quality climate information at appropriate spatial and temporal resolution is essential to develop and provide tailored climate services for Africa. A common method to produce regional climate change data is to dynamically downscale global climate projections by means of regional climate models (RCMs). Deficiencies in the representation of the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in earth system models (ESMs) and missing atmosphere–ocean interactions in RCMs contribute to the precipitation bias. This study analyzes the influence of the regional atmosphere–ocean coupling on simulated precipitation and its characteristics over Africa, and identifies those regions providing an added value using the regionally coupled atmosphere–ocean model ROM. For the analysis, the MPI-ESM-LR historical simulation and emission scenario RCP8.5 were dynamically downscaled with ROM at a spatial resolution of 0.22° × 0.22° for the whole African continent, including the tropical Atlantic and the Southwest Indian Ocean. The results show that reduced SST warm biases in both oceans lead to more realistic simulated precipitation over most coastal regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and over southern Africa to varying degrees depending on the season. In particular, the annual precipitation cycles over the coastal regions of the Atlantic Ocean are closer to observations. Moreover, total precipitation and extreme precipitation indices in the coupled historical simulation are significantly lower and more realistic compared to observations over the majority of the analyzed sub-regions. Finally, atmosphere–ocean coupling can amplify or attenuate climate change signals from precipitation indices or even change their sign in a regional climate projection

Arctic Sea Ice Decline Significantly Contributed to the Unprecedented Liquid Freshwater Accumulation in the Beaufort Gyre of the Arctic Ocean

The Beaufort Gyre (BG) is the largest liquid freshwater reservoir of the Arctic Ocean. The liquid freshwater content (FWC) significantly increased in the BG in the 2000s during an anticyclonic wind regime and remained at a high level despite a transition to a more cyclonic state in the early 2010s. It is not well understood to what extent the rapid sea ice decline during this period has modified the trend and variability of the BG liquid FWC in the past decade. Our numerical simulations show that about 50% of the liquid freshwater accumulated in the BG in the 2000s can be explained by the sea ice decline caused by the Arctic atmospheric warming. Among this part of the FWC increase, 60% can be attributed to surface freshening associated with the reduction of the net sea ice thermodynamic growth rate, and 40% to changes in ocean circulation, which makes freshwater more accessible to the BG for storage. Thus, the rapid increase of the BG FWC in the 2000s was due to the concurrence of the anticyclonic wind regime and the high freshwater availability. We also find that if the Arctic sea ice had not declined, the liquid FWC in the BG would have shown a stronger decreasing tendency at the beginning of the 2010s owing to the cyclonic wind regime. From our results we argue that changes in sea ice conditions should be adequately taken into account when it comes to understanding and predicting variations of BG liquid FWC in a changing climate

East Asian summer precipitation in AWI‐CM3: Comparison with observations and CMIP6 models

Owing to the complicated spatial–temporal characteristics of East Asian precipitation (EAP), climate models have limited skills in simulating the modern Asian climate. This consequently leads to large uncertainties in simulations of the past EAP variation and future projections. Here, we explore the performance of the newly developed Alfred Wegener Institute Climate Model,version 3 (AWI-CM3) in simulating the climatological summer EAP. To test whether the model's skill depends on its atmosphere resolution, we design two AWI-CM3 simulations with different horizontal resolutions. The result shows that both simulations have acceptable performance in simulating the summer mean EAP, generally better than the majority of individual models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). However, for the monthly EAP from June to August, AWI-CM3 exhibits a decayed skill, which is due to the subseasonal movement of the western Pacific subtropical high bias. The higher-resolution AWI-CM3 simulation shows an overall improvement relative to the one performed at a relatively lower resolution in all aspects taken into account regarding the EAP. We conclude that AWI-CM3 is a suitable tool for exploring the EAP for the observational period. Having verified the model's skill for modern climate, we suggest employing the AWI-CM3, especially with high atmosphere resolution, both for applications in paleoclimate studies and future projections

Delayed Antarctic sea-ice decline in high-resolution climate change simulations

Despite global warming and Arctic sea-ice loss, on average the Antarctic sea-ice extent has not declined since 1979 when satellite data became available. In contrast, climate model simulations tend to exhibit strong negative sea-ice trends for the same period. This Antarctic sea-ice paradox leads to low confidence in 21st-century sea-ice projections. Here we present multi-resolution climate change projections that account for Southern Ocean mesoscale eddies. The high-resolution configuration simulates stable September Antarctic sea-ice extent that is not projected to decline until the mid-21st century. We argue that one reason for this finding is a more realistic ocean circulation that increases the equatorward heat transport response to global warming. As a result, the ocean becomes more efficient at moderating the anthropogenic warming around Antarctica and hence at delaying sea-ice decline. Our study suggests that explicitly simulating Southern Ocean eddies is necessary for providing Antarctic sea-ice projections with higher confidence