About ICTS
In the ICTS regional atmospheric climate models (RCM) from different Regional Hydroclimate Projects (RHPs) will be transferred from their “home” domain to other domains involved in GEWEX. The models will be initialized and forced at their boundaries by several state of the art Global Circulation Models (GCMs). At http://www.joss.ucar.edu/ghp/ceopdm/model/model.html one can find a list of global analyses data and associated data centres. For evaluation CEOP data from the CEOP reference site data archive and the CEOP satellite data archive will be considered. Main emphasis is on the energy and water cycle components.
Linkage to GEWEX/CEOP
The Inter-Continental Transferability Study (ICTS) makes use of the CEOP data archive and contributes to the transferability working group (TWG) and the WESP (Water and Energy Simulation and Prediction) project.
Within GEWEX the CEOP (Coordinated Enhanced Observing Period) initiative has been started. One aim of CEOP is to bring together data sets from satellite measurements, synoptical observations (at reference sites) and analyses of numerical weather prediction centres. Primary focus is a two years annual data set 2003/2004. Three main data centres have been established to store the data. Reference site data archive is at UCAR which also the focus point of the overall CEOP data management. CEOP Satellite data archive is at the University of Tokyo. Model data are stored in the CERA model data bank at the German Climate Research Centre (DKRZ).
This study contributes to type 2 (“Home-based” global model; Embedded Regional Model Comparative Evaluation with “Home-based” Regional Model Output during CEOP plus CEOP Validation Data) and type 4 (Regional Model embedded in different global models to evaluate the effects of initial and boundary conditions from the different global models) of the transferability studies defined in CEOP.
There are three major benefits of this study within WESP (Water and Energy Simulation and Prediction):
o It is an example for application of CEOP data (model data, satellite data, and reference site data).
o It fulfills the requirement of transferring regional models to other regions.
o It contributes to water and energy budget studies.