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Impact of spectral nudging on regional climate simulation over CORDEX East Asia using WRF

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Abstract

In this study, the impact of the spectral nudging method on regional climate simulation over the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment East Asia (CORDEX-EA) region is investigated using the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). Driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis, five continuous simulations covering 1989–2007 are conducted by the WRF model, in which four runs adopt the interior spectral nudging with different wavenumbers, nudging variables and nudging coefficients. Model validation shows that WRF has the ability to simulate spatial distributions and temporal variations of the surface climate (air temperature and precipitation) over CORDEX-EA domain. Comparably the spectral nudging technique is effective in improving the model’s skill in the following aspects: (1), the simulated biases and root mean square errors of annual mean temperature and precipitation are obviously reduced. The SN3-UVT (spectral nudging with wavenumber 3 in both zonal and meridional directions applied to U, V and T) and SN6 (spectral nudging with wavenumber 6 in both zonal and meridional directions applied to U and V) experiments give the best simulations for temperature and precipitation respectively. The inter-annual and seasonal variances produced by the SN experiments are also closer to the ERA-Interim observation. (2), the application of spectral nudging in WRF is helpful for simulating the extreme temperature and precipitation, and the SN3-UVT simulation shows a clear advantage over the other simulations in depicting both the spatial distributions and inter-annual variances of temperature and precipitation extremes. With the spectral nudging, WRF is able to preserve the variability in the large scale climate information, and therefore adjust the temperature and precipitation variabilities toward the observation.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41375075, 91425304 and 41575099), and part of the project National Basic Research and Development (973) Program of China (2011CB952004). The authors also acknowledge with thanks the ECMWF for providing the ERA-interim reanalysis data as driving fields in the simulations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, 163 Xianlin Road, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Jianping Tang, Shuyu Wang, Xiaorui Niu & Xueyuan Wang

  2. Institute for Climate and Global Change Research, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Jianping Tang, Shuyu Wang & Xiaorui Niu

  3. Jiangsu Climate Center, Nanjing, 210009, China

    Pinhong Hui

  4. Jiangsu Meteorological Observatory, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Peishu Zong

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  1. Jianping Tang
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Correspondence to Jianping Tang.

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Tang, J., Wang, S., Niu, X. et al. Impact of spectral nudging on regional climate simulation over CORDEX East Asia using WRF. Clim Dyn 48, 2339–2357 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3208-2

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