Collaborative Research: Towards Advanced Understanding and Predictive Capability of Climate Change in the Arctic Using a High-Resolution Regional Arctic Climate System Model

• Main Author: Gutowski, William J.
• Other Authors: United States. Department of Energy. Office of Science.
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Iowa State University 2013
• Subjects: Climate System Model; Arctic; 54 Environmental Sciences Climate System Model; Climate change; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.2172/1062533; https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc832039/

The motivation for this project was to advance the science of climate change and prediction in the Arctic region. Its primary goals were to (i) develop a state-of-the-art Regional Arctic Climate system Model (RACM) including high-resolution atmosphere, land, ocean, sea ice and land hydrology components and (ii) to perform extended numerical experiments using high performance computers to minimize uncertainties and fundamentally improve current predictions of climate change in the northern polar regions. These goals were realized first through evaluation studies of climate system components via one-way coupling experiments. Simulations were then used to examine the effects of advancements in climate component systems on their representation of main physics, time-mean fields and to understand variability signals at scales over many years. As such this research directly addressed some of the major science objectives of the BER Climate Change Research Division (CCRD) regarding the advancement of long-term climate prediction.