Role of horizontal resolution in regional climate simulations over the Huang-Huai-Hai River basin

As a primary tool in climate change research at the watershed scale, the role of horizontal resolution in regional climate simulations needs to be evaluated. This paper investigates the role over the Huang-Huai-Hai (HHH) River basin using a regional climate model, RegCM4, coupled with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Land Model, version 4.5 (CLM4.5) including the modules of CN and DV (RCM_CLM4.5). The model is driven by ERA-Interim reanalysis data, and the time period is 1990-2010. Model validation shows that RCM_CLM4.5 at 50 km and 25 km resolutions can reproduce the present climate well, including the spatial distribution of winter and summer mean temperature and precipitation, the annual cycles of temperature and precipitation, and the climate extremes. However, some biases can also be found. For example, compared with the observation, cold and warm biases are found in the winter and summer mean temperature, respectively; wet biases are found in the precipitation. Comparison between the two simulations, better performance of the magnitude and spatial distribution of mean temperature is found in the simulation at 25 km resolution; while for precipitation, better performance is observed in the one at 50 km resolution; little difference is found for the climate extremes. In general, results from this study indicate a very low sensitivity of present climate in this region to model resolution and can provide a reference for the application of this model in future climate change research over the HHH River basin.