Convection-Permitting WRF Climate Modeling at Continental-Scales

Andreas F. Prein, Roy Rasmussen, Changhai Liu, Kyoko Ikeda, NCAR

We will review key results from NCAR’s research on continental-scales climate modeling with the WRF system at convection-permitting scales (4 km horizontal grid spacing or higher). The focus will be on the simulation of key processes in the North American water cycle such as the buildup and melt of snowpack in the western U.S. and the representation of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) in the central U.S.  We will also show novel results from our South American convection-permitting climate simulations to understand if the same model setup that we used over North America can skillfully simulate tropical and mid-latitude weather in South America. We will end by summarizing key challenges and prospects of convection-permitting climate modeling in supporting actionable earth system science.