P31 Sensitivity study of WRF downscaled data for the Northeast corridor

Ortiz, Luis, Jorge Gonzalez, City College of New York, Bereker Lebassi, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Understanding the effects of low resolution forcings such as Land-cover and topography on climate is an integral part of predicting conditions in the future of the Northeast Corridor (NEC). Specifically of interest is how energy consumption is affected by regional climate trends. Electric demand in the NEC is directly connected to temperature variability for space heating and cooling of buildings. Energy consumption from buildings can represent up to 20% of the total energy consumption in the NEC. Moreover, the peak demand is driven by extreme climate events such as heat waves, while changes in precipitation might affect the water supply of power plants. This work presents a sensitivity study of high resolution (4km) regional climate modeling (WRF) downscaled in the Northeast Corridor using the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis Project as input to a set of cumulus parametrization and micro-physics schemes with the aim of validating the model for simulations of future climate (2013-2100).

It is shown that precipitation is very sensitive to cumulus parametrization schemes, with the Kain-Fritsch scheme providing the best representation of the original forcing's precipitation and comparing well with gridded ground observations (PRISM), while no improvements were found by alternating micro-physics parametrization schemes. Moreover, acceptable results for maximum temperature were found, with the model underestimating PRISM temperatures by less than 10% in average for the region.