| Institution: | 1.Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research,Potsdam,Germany;2.Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences,University of Colorado,Boulder,USA;3.Danish Meteorological Institute,Copenhagen,Denmark;4.School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences,Georgia Institute of Technology,Atlanta,USA;5.Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences,University of Quebec,Montreal,Canada;6.Norwegian Meteorological Institute,Oslo,Norway;7.School of Geography and Environmental Science,Monash University,Melbourne,Australia;8.Max Planck Institute for Meteorology,Hamburg,Germany;9.Department of Meteorology,Stockholm University,Stockholm,Sweden;10.Rossby Centre,SMHI,Norrk?ping,Sweden |
| Abstract: | Simulations of eight different regional climate models (RCMs) have been performed for the period September 1997–September
1998, which coincides with the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) project period. Each of the models employed
approximately the same domain covering the western Arctic, the same horizontal resolution of 50 km, and the same boundary
forcing. The models differ in their vertical resolution as well as in the treatments of dynamics and physical parameterizations.
Both the common features and differences of the simulated spatiotemporal patterns of geopotential, temperature, cloud cover,
and long-/shortwave downward radiation between the individual model simulations are investigated. With this work, we quantify
the scatter among the models and therefore the magnitude of disagreement and unreliability of current Arctic RCM simulations.
Even with the relatively constrained experimental design we notice a considerable scatter among the different RCMs. We found
the largest across-model scatter in the 2 m temperature over land, in the surface radiation fluxes, and in the cloud cover
which implies a reduced confidence level for these variables.
An erratum to this article can be found at |
