The fifth generation regional climate modeling system, RegCM5 : the first CP European wide simulation and validation over the CORDEX-CORE domains

Abstract

The Regional Climate Modeling system (RegCM) has undergone a significant evolution over the years, leading for example to the widely used versions RegCM4 and RegCM4-NH. In response to the demand for higher resolution, a new version of the system has been developed, RegCM5, incorporating the non-hydrostatic dynamical core of the MOLOCH weather prediction model. In this paper we assess the RegCM5’s performance for 5 CORDEX-CORE domains, including a pan-European domain at convection-permitting resolution. We find temperature biases generally in the range of -2 to 2 degrees Celsius, higher in the northernmost regions of North America and Asia during winter, linked to cloud water overestimation. Central Asia and the Tibetan Plateau show cold biases, possibly due to sparse station coverage. The model exhibits a prevailing cold bias in maximum temperature and warm bias in minimum temperature, associated with a systematic overestimation of lower-level cloud fraction, especially in winter. Taylor diagrams indicate a high spatial temperature pattern correlation with ERA5 and CRU data, except in South America and the Caribbean region. The precipitation evaluation shows an overestimation in South America, East Asia, and Africa. RegCM5 improves the daily precipitation distribution compared to RegCM4, particularly at high intensities. The analysis of wind fields confirms the model’s ability to simulate monsoon circulations. The assessment of tropical cyclone tracks highlights a strong sensitivity to the tracking algorithms, thus necessitating a careful model interpretation. Over the European region, the convection permitting simulations especially improve the diurnal cycle of precipitation and the hourly precipitation intensities.