HR: 1330h
AN: A42B-0751    [PDF]
TI: A Coupled Regional Climate Simulator for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada
AU: * Faucher, M
EM: manon.faucher@ec.gc.ca
AF: Meteorological Service of Canada / OURANOS, 550 Sherbrooke West, 19 floor (West tower), Montreal, Qc H3A 1B9 Canada
AU: Saucier, F
EM: saucierf@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
AF: Maurice-Lamontagne Institute, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 850, Route de la Mer, Mont-Joli, Qc G5H 3Z4 Canada
AU: Caya, D
EM: caya.daniel@ouranos.ca
AF: OURANOS, 550 Sherbrooke West, 19 floor (West tower), Montreal, Qc H3A 1B9 Canada
AB: The climate of Eastern Canada is characterized by atmosphere-ocean-ice interactions due to the closeness of the North Atlantic Ocean and the Labrador Sea. Also, there are three relatively large inner basins: the Gulf of St-Lawrence, the Hudson Bay / Hudson Strait / Foxe Basin system and the Great Lakes, influencing the evolution of weather systems and therefore the regional climate. These basins are characterized by irregular coastlines and variables sea-ice in winter, so that the interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean are more complex. There are coupled general circulation models (GCMs) that are available to study the climate of Eastern Canada, but their resolution (near 350km) is to low to resolve the details of the regional climate of this area and to provide valuable information for climate impact studies. The goal of this work is to develop a coupled regional climate simulator for Eastern Canada to study the climate and its variability, necessary to assess the future climate in a double CO2 situation. An off-line coupling strategy through the interacting fields is used to link the Canadian Regional Climate Model developed at the "Universit‚ du Qu‚bec … Montr‚al" (CRCM, Caya and Laprise 1999) to the Gulf of St. Lawrence ocean model developed at the "Institut Maurice-Lamontagne" (GOM, Saucier et al. 2002). This strategy involves running both simulators separately and alternatively, using variables from the other simulator to supply the needed forcing fields every day. We present the results of a first series of seasonal simulations performed with this system to show the ability of our climate simulator to reproduce the known characteristics of the regional circulation such as mesoscale oceanic features, fronts and sea-ice. The simulations were done for the period from December 1st, 1989 to March 31st, 1990. The results are compared with those of previous uncoupled runs (Faucher et al. 2003) and with observations.
DE: 3339 Ocean/atmosphere interactions (0312, 4504)
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting