Data · dataset · 2026
An evaluation of the variable-resolution CESM for modeling California's climate
Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research
In this paper, the recently developed variable-resolution option within the Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) is assessed for long-term regional climate modeling of California at 0.25° (â¼28 km) and 0.125° (â¼14 km) horizontal resolutions.
Description
The mean climatology of near-surface temperature and precipitation is analyzed and contrasted with reanalysis, gridded observational data sets, and a traditional regional climate model (RCM)--the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model.
Statistical metrics for model evaluation and tests for differential significance have been extensively applied. With only prescribed sea surface temperatures, VR-CESM tended to produce a warmer summer (by about 1-3°C) and overestimated overall winter precipitation (about 25%â35%) compared to reference data sets. Increasing resolution from 0.25° to 0.125° did not produce a statistically significant improvement in the model results.
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By comparison, the analogous WRF climatology (constrained laterally and at the sea surface by ERA-Interim reanalysis) was â¼1-3°C colder than the reference data sets, underestimated precipitation by â¼20%-30% at 27 km resolution, and overestimated precipitation by â¼65-85% at 9 km. Overall, VR-CESM produced comparable statistical biases to WRF in key climatological quantities. This assessment highlights the value of variable-resolution global climate models (VRGCMs) in capturing fine-scale atmospheric processes, projecting future regional climate, and addressing the computational expense of uniform-resolution global climate models.
Links
Get the data
- Publisher page n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7df6ssf ↗
documentation · download · from data ucar edu
Where it is published
- data.ucar.edu /dataset/an-evaluation-of-the-variable-resolution-cesm-for-mode… ↗
National Center for Atmospheric Research dataset page
landing page · from data ucar edu
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API data.ucar.edu/api/3/action/package_show?id=0ea5941d-1866-49da-966c-0675bdb36… ↗
metadata API · from data ucar edu
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Ocean & Atmospheric Science
- Inferred from text
- Climate model simulation 65%
Provenance · 1 source records, 8 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | 0ea5941d-1866-49da-966c-0675bdb36783 | 13 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[method].local:method:climate-model | enrichment · data ucar edu | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (65%) |
| created_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /notes |
| publication_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 |