Climate modeling over the Mediterranean Sea: impact of resolution and ocean coupling

Abstract

introduced a warm SST bias in winter. Radiation fluxes were slightly better represented in coarse-grid simulations. Still, only the higher-resolution coupled simulations could reproduce the observed net outgoing total heat flux over the Mediterranean Sea. Investigation of the impact of subdiurnal SST variations showed a strong effect on sub-daily heat fluxes and wind speed but minor effects at longer time scales. Therefore, a coupled atmosphere-ocean climate model should be preferred for studying the Mediterranean Sea climate system. Higher-resolution models should be preferred, but they are not yet able to perform better than their coarse-resolution predecessors in all aspects.

Future evolution of Marine Heatwaves in the Mediterranean Sea

“…Indeed, at higher resolutions the representation of air-sea interaction also improves (e.g. Akhtar et al 2018;Roberts et al 2016;Hewitt et al 2017). At the same time, our results indicate an intensification of MHWs in the Mediterranean Sea with time, in agreement with the results obtained by Oliver et al (2018a) and , which used different MHW definitions.…”

Mistral and tramontane simulations with changing resolution of orography

“…Furthermore, high-resolution models show smaller biases than the coarser simulations, but a similar pattern in the biases (Obermann et al, 2016a). Increasing the model resolution improves the representation of wind speeds in the Mediterranean region (Ruti et al, 2008;Herrmann et al, 2011) and enhances the quality of coupled simulations (Akhtar et al, 2017). Increasing the model resolution improves the representation of wind speeds in the Mediterranean region (Ruti et al, 2008;Herrmann et al, 2011) and enhances the quality of coupled simulations (Akhtar et al, 2017).…”

“…Changes in sea surface roughness parameterization showed an impact on wind speed and wind direction during mistral events (Obermann et al, 2016b). Increasing the model resolution improves the representation of wind speeds in the Mediterranean region (Ruti et al, 2008;Herrmann et al, 2011) and enhances the quality of coupled simulations (Akhtar et al, 2017).…”

The state of the art and fundamental aspects of regional climate modeling in South America

“…Therefore, RCMs allow the climate processes to be assessed, the impacts of climate change to be projected, 27 and also help decision makers to come to conclusions. 5,26 In the context of regional climate modeling, some points have been discussed: (1) the quality of the RCM simulations is dependent on the quality of the GCM outputs that provide the lateral boundary conditions-Giorgi and Mearns 2 describe it as "garbage in, garbage out"; (2) the sensitivity of the RCMs determines the size of the domain and the horizontal resolution; 28,29 (3) the confidence of the models that are evaluated through comparisons with observations; (4) the added value compared with the GCMs, 6,[30][31][32][33] and (5) bias correction. [34][35][36] Some of these points will be emphasized below.…”