Multidecadal Convection-permitting Simulations of Current and Future Climate over South America using WRF

Description

A high-resolution convection-permitting climate change simulation was performed at 4 km grid spacing covering the entire continent of South America. The simulation was performed using Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model. This dataset is from a 22-year simulation representing the current climate between January 2001 and January 2022. ERA5 data was used to initialize the model and force boundary every 3 hours. This high-resolution simulation allowed for much improved representation of topography, convection, and orographic precipitation and snowpack, resulting in a one-of-a-kind dataset that can be used to study the hydroclimate processes in South America. A second simulation was then performed using the ERA5 weather with a climate perturbation from the CESM2-Large Ensemble (LENS2) for near the end of the 21st century (2060-2080). Monthly mean change signals were computed from the LENS2 and applied to the sub-daily ERA5 data to create the future simulation data used to drive the WRF model. This dataset provides a warmer and wetter 2060-2080 future scenario for South America using the same 2001-2022 day-to-day weather. The combined datasets will enable myriad research studies, spanning fundamental and applied research into regional hydroclimatic change over South America and corresponding impacts across sectors.

Update Frequency

Rare. This dataset is unlikely to be updated unless there are file problems discovered in the AWS copy.

License

https://www.ucar.edu/terms-of-use/data

Documentation

https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/d616000 This website describes the current climate simulation files and variables. The future climate files are exactly the same, excpet for file names indicating the future simulation.

Managed By

NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research

See all datasets managed by NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Contact

rdahelp@ucar.edu, Erin Dougherty, doughert@ucar.edu; Andy Newman, anewman@ucar.edu

How to Cite

Multidecadal Convection-permitting Simulations of Current and Future Climate over South America using WRF was accessed on DATE from https://registry.opendata.aws/saag-wrf. C. Liu, K. Ikeda, E. Dougherty, A. J. Newman, M. L. Bettolli, F. Dominguez, K. R. Rasmussen, and R. Rasmussen. 2025. Multi-decadal Convection-permitting Simulation of Current and Future Climate over South America using WRF. Developed by the National Science Foundataion National Center for Atmospheric Research. Amazon Web Services Open Data Sponsorship Program. Accessed† dd mmm yyyy.

Usage Examples

Tools & Applications

• SAAG_readin.ipnyb by Erin Dougherty
  

Publications

• Advancing South American Water and Climate Science through Multidecadal Convection-Permitting Modeling by Dominguez et al. (2024), Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 105, E32–E44