An analysis of regional climate model performance over the tropical Americas. Part I: simulating seasonal variability of precipitation associated with ENSO forcing

Etienne Tourigny; Colin G. Jones

doi:10.1111/j.1600-0870.2008.00386.x

An analysis of regional climate model performance over the tropical Americas. Part I: simulating seasonal variability of precipitation associated with ENSO forcing

Tellus

Volume 61 (2009): Issue 3

By: Etienne Tourigny and Colin G. Jones

Open Access

|Jan 2009

Abstract

Sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies associated with El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) constitute a major source of predictability in the tropics. We evaluate the ability of a regional climate model (the Rossby Centre Atmospheric Model; RCA) to downscale SST and large-scale atmospheric anomalies associated with ENSO. RCA is configured over the tropical east Pacific and tropical Americas and runs for the period 1979–2005, using European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) lateral and surface boundary conditions. We study the ability of RCA to represent regional patterns of precipitation, with respect to both the climatology and interannual variability associated with ENSO. The latter is achieved by grouping the simulations into El Niño and La Niña composites and studying the delayed response of precipitation to SST forcing in four regions of Central and South America.

In this paper, we concentrate on seasonal mean timescales. We find that RCA accurately simulates the main features of the precipitation climatology over the four regions and also reproduces the majority of the documented regional responses to ENSO forcing. Furthermore, the model captures the variability in precipitation anomalies between different ENSO events. The model exhibits a wet bias over the northern Amazon and slightly overestimates the magnitude of ENSO anomalies over Central America.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0870.2008.00386.x | Journal eISSN: 3035-9554

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Language: English

Page range: 323 - 342

Submitted on: Apr 3, 2008

Accepted on: Nov 28, 2008

Published on: Jan 1, 2009

Published by: Stockholm University Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2009 Etienne Tourigny, Colin G. Jones, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 61 (2009): Issue 3