A polit project to test a data assimilation system for a regional reanalysis for the Third Pole region
Title: A polit project to test a data assimilation system for a regional reanalysis for the Third Pole region
DNr: SNIC 2018/3-536
Project Type: SNIC Medium Compute
Principal Investigator: Deliang Chen <deliang@gvc.gu.se>
Affiliation: Göteborgs universitet
Duration: 2018-12-01 – 2019-12-01
Classification: 10501 10505 10508
Homepage: http://rcg.gvc.gu.se/
Keywords:

Abstract

The Third Pole (TP) is the Tibetan Plateau and all the mountain ranges that surround it. The region has a significant role in the global climate system and is highly sensitive to human-induced climate change. Due to the complex topography and harsh environment, ground-based observations are scarce, making the study of regional climate and its impact on other systems such as water cycle difficult. Regional reanalysis provides a means to solve the problem. The key to the success of this approach is access to high performance computing and a skillful regional model supported by satellite data. Over the last years, several such regional reanalyses, e.g., Europe and Arctic region, have been conducted and proven successful and useful. The proposed project plans to make such a first attempt for the TP. Due to the scientific and technical challenges to set up a state-of-the-art modeling system with assimilation capacity for the TP, we intend to start this pilot study to test the performance of such a system. The applicants have tested such a system for short period with encouraging results over the last few years. It is the time now to test the system over a longer time period. Specifically, the latest global reanalysis from ECMWF with a global horizontal reclusion of 31 km (ERA5), will be used to drive the regional reanalysis using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model (9 km resolution). The project team has been actively engaged in an international research program called the Third Pole Environment (TPE) which calls for such an effort. A close cooperation with Prof. Fuqing Zhang’s center at Penn State who is an internationally leading institution on data assimilation using a similar system has been established. It will be promising to implement this pilot project because it has a huge potential to make a difference in water cycle studies for the TP. In addition, its outcome has the huge potential to open up new opportunities for many other environmental studies in the region. Understanding water cycle dynamics is one of the core scientific challenges in hydrology and climate science. It is also central to nearly every aspect of the global environment and crucial to human welfare. This project represents a critical step in reliably obtaining input data for describing the water cycle dynamics and systematically addressing the fundamental processes in the water cycle over the TP. The novel approach, which combines ground/space-based observations, global and fine-scale regional analyses, and advanced modeling, will not only significantly improve our understanding of the hydrological responses in the TP to a changing climate, but also holds the great potential to contribute to the further development of science relevant for processes in other cold regions such as the Arctic. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that the regional reanalysis will revolutionize meteorological and climatological research for this region, similar to the incredible impacts we have seen from global reanalysis projects such as the ECMWF and NCEP reanalysis.