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Journal Of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres

Publication date: 2019-01-25
Volume: 124 Pages: 1405 - 1427
Publisher: AGU Publications

Author:

Souverijns, Niels
Gossart, Alexandra ; Demuzere, Matthias ; Lenaerts, Jan ; Medley, Brooke ; Gorodetskaya, Irina ; Vanden Broucke, sam ; Van Lipzig, nicole

Keywords:

Science & Technology, Physical Sciences, Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences, Antarctica, regional climate model, evaluation, POLAR-CORDEX, SURFACE MASS-BALANCE, DRONNING MAUD LAND, ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY-LAYER, ICE-SHEET, KATABATIC WINDS, DOME-C, SNOW ACCUMULATION, EAST ANTARCTICA, PRECIPITATION, TEMPERATURE, 0401 Atmospheric Sciences, 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience, 3701 Atmospheric sciences, 3702 Climate change science

Abstract:

©2019. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. Continent-wide climate information over the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) is important to obtain accurate information of present climate and reduce uncertainties of the ice sheet mass balance response and resulting global sea level rise to future climate change. In this study, the COSMO-CLM 2 Regional Climate Model is applied over the AIS and adapted for the specific meteorological and climatological conditions of the region. A 30-year hindcast was performed and evaluated against observational records consisting of long-term ground-based meteorological observations, automatic weather stations, radiosoundings, satellite records, stake measurements and ice cores. Reasonable agreement regarding the surface and upper-air climate is achieved by the COSMO-CLM 2 model, comparable to the performance of other state-of-the-art climate models over the AIS. Meteorological variability of the surface climate is adequately simulated, and biases in the radiation and surface mass balance are small. The presented model therefore contributes as a new member to the COordinated Regional Downscaling EXperiment project over the AIS (POLAR-CORDEX) and the CORDEX-CORE initiative.