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Variable-Resolution model: an alternative way to solve the dilemma of high-resolution modeling

Abstract:

For a region that has complicated topography, like Southeast Asia(SEA), a refine mesh is needed to simulate local atmospheric circulation, remote teleconnection and project future regional climate. The dilemma becomes obvious in this region since one-way regional climate downscaling will not capture the coupling between regional and larger scales while the computational cost of a high-resolution global climate model (GCM) will be a nightmare.

Recently, a static nested, variable mesh has been introduced into the Community Earth
System Model (VR-CESM) Spectral Element (SE) dynamical core that helps to solve the problem. I will evaluate the performance of the variable resolution modeling of SEA at 0.25 degree (~28km) horizontal resolution by comparing the climatology with coarser mesh and several observational dataset. Statistical assessment highlights the value of variable resolution GCM in capturing fine-scale atmospheric process in SEA.