Regional Climate Modeling

    Dr. Wang's research efforts at the IPRC have been made to understand climate processes in the East Asian summer monsoon system and boundary layer clouds over the Southeast Pacific off South America and their large-scale atmospheric forcing over the eastern Pacific using the IPRC regional climate model (IPRC_RegCM). The efforts being made in regional climate modeling studies in East Asia so far include (1) to realistically simulate not only the large-scale features of the East-Asian summer monsoon and its hydrological cycle, but also meso-scale phenomena and the involved complex scale interactions, (2) to study the interaction between the tropical northward propagating intraseasonal oscillation and the East-Asian summer monsoon, and (3) to study effects of Indochina deforestation and desertification in Northwest China on the East-Asian summer monsoon rainfall. Over the eastern Pacific, the efforts being made include (1) to realistically simulate boundary layer clouds over the Southeast Pacific off South America, (2) to study their large-scale atmospheric forcing over the eastern tropical Pacific, and (3) to study the effect of the Andes on the eastern Pacific climate.

    Dr. Wang is interested in conducting regional climate modeling studies using climate models (regional climate model, AGCM and CGCM) with comprehensive diagnostic analyses to improve our understanding of different climate processes with emphases on cloud-aerosol-radiation interaction, cloud-SST-circulation feedback, land-biosphere-atmosphere interaction; and to study these climate processes in affecting climate variability, predictability and hydrological cycle, and to assess impact of global change on regional climate in various regions. In particular, he is going to initiate a regional climate model (RCM) intercomparison project with the focus on the realistic simulation of sub-daily variations of clouds and precipitation because such a skill is considered to be important for driving hydrologic and other application models with the RCM outputs. Another potential area Dr. Wang is quite interested is the seasonal climate prediction with the RCM nested into a coupled GCM. Seasonal climate prediction may be a useful framework for testing the value of dynamical downscaling from a RCM because unlike climate change projections, seasonal climate forecasts and their applications can be verified (see Wang et al. 2003).