A new regional climate model for POLAR-CORDEX : evaluation of a 30-year hindcast with COSMO-CLM2 over Antarctica

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
• Main Authors: Souverijns, N., Gossart, A., Demuzere, Matthias, Lenaerts, J. T. M., Medley, B., Gorodetskaya, I. V., Vanden Broucke, S., van Lipzig, N. P. M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Earth and Environmental Sciences; Antarctica; regional climate model; evaluation; POLAR-CORDEX; SURFACE MASS-BALANCE; DRONNING MAUD LAND; ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY-LAYER; ICE-SHEET; KATABATIC WINDS; DOME-C; SNOW ACCUMULATION; EAST ANTARCTICA; PRECIPITATION; TEMPERATURE; Antarctic; The Antarctic; East Antarctica; Dronning Maud Land; Antarc*; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8641914; http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8641914; https://doi.org/10.1029/2018jd028862; https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8641914/file/8641927

Continent-wide climate information over the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) is important to obtain accurate information of present climate and reduce uncertainties of the ice sheet mass balance response and resulting global sea level rise to future climate change. In this study, the COSMO-CLM2 Regional Climate Model is applied over the AIS and adapted for the specific meteorological and climatological conditions of the region. A 30-year hindcast was performed and evaluated against observational records consisting of long-term ground-based meteorological observations, automatic weather stations, radiosoundings, satellite records, stake measurements and ice cores. Reasonable agreement regarding the surface and upper-air climate is achieved by the COSMO-CLM2 model, comparable to the performance of other state-of-the-art climate models over the AIS. Meteorological variability of the surface climate is adequately simulated, and biases in the radiation and surface mass balance are small. The presented model therefore contributes as a new member to the COordinated Regional Downscaling EXperiment project over the AIS (POLAR-CORDEX) and the CORDEX-CORE initiative.