Clouds and Precipitation Simulated by the US DOE Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME)

Abstract:

A new US Department of Energy (DOE) climate modeling effort is to develop an Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME) to accelerate the development and application of fully coupled, state-of-the-art Earth system models for scientific and energy application. ACME is a high-resolution climate model with a 0.25 degree in horizontal and more than 60 levels in the vertical. It starts from the Community Earth System Model (CESM) with notable changes to its physical parameterizations and other components. This presentation provides an overview on the ACME model’s capability in simulating clouds and precipitation and its sensitivity to convection schemes. Results with using several state-of-the-art cumulus convection schemes, including those unified parameterizations that are being developed in the climate community, will be presented. These convection schemes are evaluated in a multi-scale framework including both short-range hindcasts and free-running climate simulations with both satellite data and ground-based measurements. Running climate model in short-range hindcasts has been proven to be an efficient way to understand model deficiencies. The analysis is focused on those systematic errors in clouds and precipitation simulations that are shared in many climate models. The goal is to understand what model deficiencies might be primarily responsible for these systematic errors.