Reproducibility of present climate in a non-hydrostatic regional climate model nested within an atmosphere general circulation model

Abstract

A 20-year-integration of a non-hydrostatic regional climate model (NHRCM) was conducted to reproduce the present climate. The annual mean surface temperature and precipitation of Japan are well simulated in NHRCM. There was one conspicuous outlier in the verification of the model's annual precipitation with observations. An even finer grid spacing than 5 km would be required to reproduce the precipitation at this observation point. The regional model successfully simulated heavy precipitation that a general circulation model could not reproduce. This model reproduced snow depth well in most of Japan, except in the north on the coast of the Sea of Japan, where the depth was underestimated.