Climate Prediction Using HadCM3 Climate Model
Currently I am working on a project with Dr. Weare dealing with coupled and
atmospheric model intercomparison. We will be evaluating different climate models
including the HadCM3 model to determine how these climate models simulate the
current and past climate conditions.
In doing this, we will first examine the HadCM3 model from Britain
(http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/link/) and see how well this climate model simulate climate in
the past (years 1860 to present). During this time period we will see how mean
temperatures and precipitation values from the model correlate with actual temperature
and precipitation values. These mean values will consist of measurements taken over 10
months each decade. Furthermore, in this section of the project, we will use the MSLP's
to determine how well the El-Nino episodes in the climate models correspond to those
archived in historical data, in terms of both time and magnitude. By knowing when the
El-Nino episodes are in the model, we can see how the model responds to an El-Nino
event through examining the El-Nino caused deviations in mean temperature and
precipitation and then comparing them with actual deviations from historical data.
Some things that need to be taken into account in this section of the project
include how temperature and precipitation vary seasonally, which require temperature
and precipitation means to be taken for each differing season for climate model analysis,
in addition to overall 10 month means. This will also help us know how well the climate
models respond to changes in season.
From understanding how theHadCM3 correlates with current and past climate
conditions we can then use the model to understand the range possible climate scenarios
that could result from global warming in the future throughout the western United States.
From the seasonal data, we can see how seasonal precipitation regimes will change. We
can also examine El-Nino conditions, their frequency and how the climate regimes could
change with El Nino, taking into account the response of the climate model to El Nino.
Another issue in determining how climate change by the models is how much rain
will be convective vs. synoptic in nature. The synoptic rainfall will have less variability
over a given area than that of synoptic systems. However, we will need to formulate
what the difference in variability will be between rainfall resulting from a synoptic storm
as opposed to convective storms.
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