An ocean-atmosphere climate simulation with an embedded cloud resolving model

Abstract

Mean climate and intraseasonal to interannual variability of two versions of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (CGCM) are analyzed. The first version is the standard CCSM, in which cloud effects on the large-scale circulation are represented via parameterizations. The second version includes "super- parameterization" (SP) of convective processes by replacing parameterized cloud processes with a two-dimensional (2D) cloud-process resolving model (CRM) at each CGCM grid column. The SP-CCSM improves several shortcomings of the CCSM simulation, including mean precipitation patterns, equatorial SST cold tongue structure and associated double intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), the Asian monsoon, periodicity of the El Nio-Southern Oscillation, and the intraseasonal Madden-Julian Oscillation. These improvements were obtained without the retuning of the coupled model, which is surprising in view of previous experience with other coupled models. Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.