HR: 15:25h
AN: GC23B-08    [Abstracts]
TI: A Coupled Regional Climate Modelling System for the Mediterranean Area: Results From the Control Simulation.
AU: * Calmanti, S
EM: sandro.calmanti@casaccia.enea.it
AF: ENEA, Via Anguillarese, 301, Rome, 00060, Italy
AU: Artale, V
AF: ENEA, Via Anguillarese, 301, Rome, 00060, Italy
AU: Bi, X
AF: ICTP, Strada Costiera 11, Trieste, 34014, Italy
AU: Carillo, A
AF: ENEA, Via Anguillarese, 301, Rome, 00060, Italy
AU: Dell'Aquila, A
AF: ENEA, Via Anguillarese, 301, Rome, 00060, Italy
AU: Giorgi, F
AF: ICTP, Strada Costiera 11, Trieste, 34014, Italy
AU: Pal, J
AF: ICTP, Strada Costiera 11, Trieste, 34014, Italy
AU: Pisacane, G
AF: ENEA, Via Anguillarese, 301, Rome, 00060, Italy
AU: Rauscher, S
AF: ICTP, Strada Costiera 11, Trieste, 34014, Italy
AU: Ruti, P
AF: ICTP, Strada Costiera 11, Trieste, 34014, Italy
AU: Sannino, G
AF: ENEA, Via Anguillarese, 301, Rome, 00060, Italy
AU: Struglia, M
AF: ENEA, Via Anguillarese, 301, Rome, 00060, Italy
AB: Nested limited-area atmospheric models have proven their ability in resolving small features that are missing in global-scale climate simulations. At present fully coupled regional climate models are being developed, so that the interactions among the components of the climate system (i.e. ocean, atmosphere, biosphere and sea-ice) are explicitly simulated. Such models are expected to improve the reliability of climate scenario simulations over complex regions such as the Mediterranean area, which is subject both to the influence of global scale dynamics (e.g. disturbances in the mid- latitudes, strength and meridional extension of the Hadley circulation), and to the effects of local physical processes (complex topography, local evaporation). We present results from the control simulation performed with a novel coupled system for regional climate modelling. The Protheus system consists of the RegCM (atmospheric model), the MITgcm (ocean model), coupled via OASIS3. We have performed the control simulations with the ERA40 reanalysis as lateral boundary condition for the atmospheric model. We have employed the same dataset to supply the surface boundary condition to a stand- alone version of the ocean model. We focus our analysis on the main differences between the stand-alone configurations of the single model components and the fully coupled system.
DE: 0550 Model verification and validation
DE: 1622 Earth system modeling (1225)
DE: 1637 Regional climate change
DE: 3339 Ocean/atmosphere interactions (0312, 4504)
SC: Global Environmental Change [GC]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting