First results of the polar regional climate model RACMO2.4

The next version of the polar Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (referred to as RACMO2.4p1) is presented in this study. The principal update includes embedding of the package of physical parameterizations of the Integrated Forecast System (IFS) cycle 47r1. This constitutes changes in the precipitat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Cryosphere
Main Authors: C. T. van Dalum, W. J. van de Berg, S. N. Gadde, M. van Tiggelen, T. van der Drift, E. van Meijgaard, L. H. van Ulft, M. R. van den Broeke
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2024
Subjects:
Environmental sciences
GE1-350
Geology
QE1-996.5
Antarctic
Antarctic Peninsula
Arctic
Greenland
The Antarctic
Antarc*
Antarctica
The Cryosphere
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-4065-2024
https://doaj.org/article/0d09c5b925fd4044b254d7217ed1f25b
Description
Summary:The next version of the polar Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (referred to as RACMO2.4p1) is presented in this study. The principal update includes embedding of the package of physical parameterizations of the Integrated Forecast System (IFS) cycle 47r1. This constitutes changes in the precipitation, convection, turbulence, aerosol and surface schemes and includes a new cloud scheme with more prognostic variables and a dedicated lake model. Furthermore, the standalone IFS radiation physics module ecRad is incorporated into RACMO, and a multilayer snow module for non-glaciated regions is introduced. Other updates involve the introduction of a fractional land–ice mask, new and updated climatological data sets (such as aerosol concentrations and leaf area index), and the revision of several parameterizations specific to glaciated regions. As a proof of concept, we show first results for Greenland, Antarctica and a region encompassing the Arctic. By comparing the results with observations and the output from the previous model version (RACMO2.3p3), we show that the model performs well regarding the surface mass balance, surface energy balance, temperature, wind speed, cloud content and snow depth. The advection of snow hydrometeors strongly impacts the ice sheet's local surface mass balance, particularly in high-accumulation regions such as southeast Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula. We critically assess the model output and identify some processes that would benefit from further model development.

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