Giorgi, F., and M. R. Marinucci, 1996: An investigation of the sensitivity of simulated precipitation to model resolution and its implications for climate studies. Mon. Wea. Rev., 124, 148-166.
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Need for High Spatial Resolution for Climate Simulations
Regions such as mountains and coastal areas that are characterized by strong regional-scale orographic forcing are known to introduce regional and local modifications of large-scale climate. Giorgi and Marinucci (1996) discussed three issues relating model resolution to quality of climate simulation: better representation of the general circulation, improved representation of orographic forcing, and sensitivity to physics parameterizations. They found that decreasing model horizontal grid spacing from 200 km to 50 km in simulations over Europe produced synoptic system structure, precipitation intensity distributions, precipitation threat scores, and cloudiness that improved with resolution. They found that better resolution of mountains rearranged the precipitation patterns to be more like observed patterns but did not increase or
decrease the total large scale precipitation. However, better resolution of hydrological processes, rather than better resolution of terrain, was the cause of simulation improvement for high-resolution models.
Giorgi, F., and M. R. Marinucci, 1996: An investigation of the sensitivity of simulated precipitation to model resolution and its implications for climate studies. Mon. Wea. Rev., 124, 148-166.
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Copyright/Trademark Legal Notice