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Effect of horizontal resolution on ECHAM6-AMIP performance

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Abstract

This study analyzes the effect of increasing horizontal resolution in the atmospheric model ECHAM6 on the simulated mean climate state and climate variability. For that purpose three AMIP-style simulations with the resolutions T63L95, T127L95, and T255L95 are compared to reanalysis data and observations. Biases in atmospheric fields as well as tropospheric and stratospheric biases individually are analyzed. Besides mean errors of the climate state and the variance, some atmospheric phenomena with different time scales are studied at the three horizontal resolutions: the transient eddy kinetic energy, storm tracks, atmospheric teleconnections, the Madden–Julian-Oscillation (MJO), and the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO). The main result is that, overall, the bias of the simulated climate is reduced with increasing resolution when considering the mean state and the variance. A greater improvement takes place in the extra-tropical than in the tropical troposphere. The errors in the stratosphere are generally larger but the relative benefit of increasing resolution is greater than in the troposphere and we find that stratospheric phenomena, like the QBO, are sensitive to horizontal resolution. Globally, the bias of the mean state improves by 19 %, while the bias of the variability improves by 15 % (from T63 to T255). Major challenges remain the simulation of the precipitation and climate features like the MJO, which might require a coupled atmosphere–ocean model.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Jürgen Bader for helpful comments on this manuscript. Monika Esch and Thorsten Mauritsen are acknowledged for their help with the simulations. This work was supported through the Cluster of Excellence ‘CliSAP’ (EXC177), University of Hamburg, funded through the German Science Foundation (DFG). Computing resources were provided by the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ). The STORM AMIP simulation is part of the German STORM consortium project. It is acknowledged by various institutions inside Germany in general and by Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology, the CliSAP Cluster of Excellence of the University Hamburg, Institute of Coastal Research of the Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht, and Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research through their financial support in particular.

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  1. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstraße 53, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Eileen Hertwig, Jin-Song von Storch & Thomas Krismer

  2. Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany

    Dörthe Handorf & Klaus Dethloff

  3. German Climate Computing Center, Hamburg, Germany

    Irina Fast

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  1. Eileen Hertwig
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  2. Jin-Song von Storch
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Correspondence to Eileen Hertwig.

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Hertwig, E., von Storch, JS., Handorf, D. et al. Effect of horizontal resolution on ECHAM6-AMIP performance. Clim Dyn 45, 185–211 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2396-x

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