Very-High-Resolution Regional Climate

Dynamic Downscaling and Hydrological

Simulations for Peru and Arequipa Regions

PI Ming Xue
Weathernews Chair and GLC Research Professor
School of Meteorology
Director, Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms
University of Oklahoma
mxue@ou.edu

Co-PIs: Xiao-Ming Hu, Yang Hong, Elinor Martin, Renee McPherson

 Background and Motivation
• Climate change can cause
• Shift of weather patterns
• Increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events
• Reduced water availability or more flooding
• Change in once-stable cultivating and harvesting patterns
• Increased exposure to disease
• Such impacts can be more dramatic in coastal countries
and those with high and complex orography
• Peru is one of such countries that can be more vulnerable to
the changing climate
• Accurate projection of future climate under different
emission scenarios, down to very fine spatial scales for
Peru and the Arequipa region, and the development of
mitigation strategies and corresponding policies are
therefore critical
 Global Climate Model Projection of
Precipitation Change
• Projected trend in average
precipitation from climate models
2006-2100
• Most of Peru predicted to become
wetter – lots of models agree! –
Implications!
• Strong contrast with drying over
the Amazon
• Lack of spatial detail within Peru,
especially at coast and in
mountains - need for
downscaling!
Why Regional Climate Dynamic Downscaling
(Nested Grid Regional Climate Simulations)?
• Future climate projections under different climate change
scenarios are usually done using global climate models (GCMs)
using ~100 km grid spacings. The resolution is too coarse to
resolve local forcing and local weather
• Precipitation processes and severe weather occur at ~kilometer scales
• Precipitation is critical for water availability and needs to be accurately
simulated.
• The GCM output are too coarse in resolution as input to downstream
impact models, such as those for ground hydrology and river streams.
• Dynamic downscaling is a way of refining global climate
projections and responses at local/regional scales, and to improve
weather-climate simulations.
• It does so by nesting higher-resolution regional climate models
(RCMs) within GCM simulations, using GCM output to provide the
lateral boundary conditions.
• Statistical downscaling is another cheaper approach, but has
many important limitations, and also requires rich observational
data to derive the statistics.
 Cloud-Resolving Regional Climate Downscaling
• Most RCM downscaling is done at 25 – 50 km grid spacings, still too coarse to resolve local
complex terrain and land use/land cover inhomogeneity, such as those found in Peru region.
• For example, the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) Coordinated Regional Climate
Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) recommends the use of a South American domain at 50 km
grid spacing for dynamic downscaling.
• At grid spacings > 10 km, deep convection is parameterized, not explicitly resolved, severely
limiting the accurate of precipitation simulation.
• Supercomputing power has advanced to where cloud-resolving (CR) RCMs can be run at
reasonable costs, that are much more accurate in simulating precipitation and all forms of local
weather (e.g., air flows, temperature, local climate and land conditions, in response to complex
terrain and land use/land cover).
• RCMs contain a land model/vegetation model that can also predict land states including soil
moisture content, snow cover, frozen soil, flooding and drought conditions. It can also be
coupled with hydrology and vegetation models.
• The high-resolution RCM output (e.g., 3D, every hour, all variables) can be used to drive other
downstream impact models, such as ground water hydrology, river stream, land slide, air quality,
crop production, energy (consumption and generation), economics, social impact/sustainability
and health-disease models. The output of RCMs is richer in content than all available
observations combined.
• The uncertainties of RCM projections can be assessed through running multiple versions of
RCMs with difference forcings, in the form of an ensemble.
 North American Regional Climate Change
Assessment Program (NARCCAP)

• An international program led by the

National Center for Atmospheric
Research (NCAR) to produce high
resolution climate change simulations
in order to investigate uncertainties in
regional scale projections of future
climate and generate climate change
scenarios for use in impacts research.
• RCMs are run at 50km grid spacing,
driven at the boundary by GFDL,
NCAR and Canada and UK GCM
model simulations for A2 emissions
scenario (1.4 to 3.75° or ~150 to 350
km grid spacings).

https://www.narccap.ucar.edu/about/index.html
 Seasonal average climate change for the periods 2041-2070
minus 1971-2000 for WRF RCM driven by NCAR CCSM

CCSM CCSM
DFJ MAM
Precipitation Precipitation
change change

WRF (50km) WRF (50km)

DFJ MAM
Precipitation Precipitation
change change
The World Climate Research Program (WCRP) Coordinated Regional Climate
Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) recommends the following domain for South
American, at 50 km grid spacing. UBA of Argentina and USP of Brazil appear to
be leading/coordinating the effort.
 CODEX RCM and GCM Precipitation Simulations over SA

Biases of
4 RCMS
0.44 degree
Obs
rainfall

Biases of
Silvina Solman’s group
3 GCMS
Work with CORDEX-SA

Solman, S.A., Blázquez, J., Multiscale precipitation variability over South America: Analysis of the
added value of CORDEX RCM simulations, Climate Dynamics 53 (2019), pp. 1547–1565.
 Downscaling for South America and Peru
• 50 km grid spacing is too coarse to resolve complex terrain/steep
mountain ranges, coast lines, in Peru region, let alone river valleys.
• Precipitation simulation, local winds, temperature, humidity conditions
will be poor at the coarse resolution.

Terrain height on 3 km v.s. 50 km grid

 Downscaling for South America and Peru
• We propose a nested grid configuration for RCM downscaling, with a 15 km grid covering
entire South America (SA, like CORDEX grid), and a nested 3 km grid centered on
Arequipa.
• Simulations will be first run for a 5-10 year
period for past climate to verify and optimize
RCM over SA and Peru regions.
• WCRP CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison
Project Phase 6) GCM simulations for different
emission scenarios will be used to provide
boundary forcing for future climate
downscaling.
• A hydrology model will be coupled with the
RCM to simulate surface water/
flooding/draught conditions/river streams
• Precipitation amount, intensity and distribution
changes, intensity and frequency of severe
high impact weather events, flooding and
draught conditions, temperature and humidity
ranges and diurnal cycles, etc. will be studied.
Proposed grid configuration
 Prior Work at OU

• The OU team, lead by CAPS, is among the world’s first to run RCMs at
cloud-resolving resolutions.
• In collaboration with SC-CASC, CAPS established a RCM based on WRF
model, ran 10-year 4 km simulations over central U.S. and showed that
precipitation simulation is significantly better than 50 km NARCCAP
simulations (Sun et al. 2016).
• The simulations are further improved by spectral nudging (Hu et al.
2018). It also evaluated various physics configurations.
• The system can be applied to South America and Peru regions (we have
run a test with the grid in the previous slide). It will be first evaluated and
optimized via simulations for past climate forced by reanalysis data.

Sun, X., M. Xue, J. Brotzge, R. McPherson, X. Hu, and X.-Q. Yang, 2016: An evaluation of dynamic downscaling of central plains summer
precipitation using a WRF-based regional climate model at a convection-permitting 4-km resolution. J. Geophy. Res., 121, 13801-13826.

Hu, X.-M., M. Xue, R. A. McPherson, E. Martin, D. H. Rosendahl and L. Qiao, 2018: Precipitation dynamical downscaling over the Great
Plains. J. Adv. Modeling Earth Systems, 10, 421-447.
 25 km Precipitation

Dynamical
Downscaling of
Central Plains
Summer Precipitation 25km
using a WRF-based terrain
RCM at 4 km and 25
km Grid Spacings
4 km Precipitation
(Performed by OU
CAPS and SC-CSC
Team – Sun et al.
2016)
4km
terrain
Sun, X., M. Xue, J. Brotzge, R. McPherson, X.
Hu, and X.-Q. Yang, 2016: An evaluation of
dynamic downscaling of central plains summer
precipitation using a WRF-based regional climate
model at a convection-permitting 4-km resolution.
J. Geophy. Res., 121, 13801-13826
Monthly Precipitation Dynamical Downscaling with Spectral Nudging
20 km WRF, 1980-2004 (25 years)

Dry bias in eastern US reduced

Time series of monthly climatological

precipitation rate over the Great Plains
(from PRISM data, nudging_WRF and NARCCAP
WRFG)
Monthly precipitation dynamically downscaled (left) with
nudging_WRF and (right) with NARCCAP WRFG, and (middle) PRISM
data for the month labeled.

Hu, X.-M., M. Xue, R. A. McPherson, E. Martin, D. H. Rosendahl and L. Qiao, 2018: Precipitation dynamical downscaling over the
Great Plains. J. Adv. Modeling Earth Systems, 10, 421-447.
 Test again with spectral
nudging at 20 km grid spacing
At 20 km Grid Spacing, Precipitation Simulation very Sensitive to
Cumulus Parameterization Schemes

Diurnal variation of normalized rainfall rate during JJA

2005 over the (a) Rockies and (b) Great plains.
CREST: A Distributed Hydrologic Model designed to take advantage of the 3-D
remote sensing data streams, Used at Global or Regional Projects
Wang and Hong et al. 2011

Coupled Routing and Excess STorage

(CREST):

• Three soil layers.

• Distributed, fully coupled runoff
generation and routing model
• Simulates water and energy fluxes
and storage on a regular grid

Cell-to-Cell Flow Routing

2 Forcings
17 Parameters
9 Outputs

Step I: Rainfall-infiltration Partitioning (distributed

and time-variant)
Step 2: Flow Routing using Macro-scale Cell-to-Cell
Algorithm
Step 3: Grid Point Hydrographs--Flood Inundation
Mapping

17
OU CREST: Coupled Routing and Excess Storage Hydrology
Model

2 Forcings (P and PET)

17 Parameters
Evapotranspiration 9 Outputs
Impervious
Area
Precip
Soil/Vegetation . Direct Surface Runoff

Overland Reservoir
Grid Cell
Grid Cell
Routing
Infiltration Routing

Stream
VIC flow
Model Grid Cell
Interflow

Grid Cell Grid Cell

Routing Routing
Interflow Reservoir
 iCRESLIDE: USA National Flash Landslide System
NMQ： National Mosaic and Multi-Sensor QPE (NMQ)
FLASH： Flooded Locations And Simulated Hydrographs
LANDSLIDE: SLope-Infiltration-Distributed Equilibrium Model
NMQ Radar Precipitation FLASH Distributed CREST LANDSLIDE
Observations 250 m/2.5 min Hydrologic Models Landslide Hotspot Models

Simulated surface water flow Landslide prediction

150
200
250 mm

20 Red:
fatalitie Observations
10-11 June 2010, Albert Pike Rec s Pink:
Area, Arkansas Predictions
 Main Tasks

• Run RCM simulations for past climate up to 10 years over SA and Arequipa regions to validate
the simulations, and tune and optimize the RCM.
• Run the RCM for future climate for periods of most interest to local policy makers (e.g.,
10/20/50 years from now) for different emission scenarios, and with several different model
physics configurations (e.g., land surface physics and microphysics, to assess projection
uncertainties), using global climate CMIP6 simulations to provide lateral and ocean SST lower
boundary forcings.
• Run hydrology and river stream models online together with the RCMs or offline (at higher
resolutions – which can be considered another level of downscaling) and assess flood/draught
potentials/extremes under climate change scenarios.
• Help UNSA build a mid-sized supercomputing center of their own (of so desired) and train UNSA
personnel in running RCMs on OU and/or their local supercomputers. Make additional runs on
NSF Supercomputers.
• Analyze the simulation output together with UNSA scientists to examine climate change and
variability in precipitation amount, intensity and distribution changes, intensity and frequency of
severe high impact weather events, flooding and draught conditions, temperature and humidity
mean and ranges, and diurnal cycles, etc.
• Provide data to and work with other OU and UNSA groups in assessing various impacts of
climate changes.
 Specific Milestones and Deliverables
Year 1 (set up and optimize RCM system, run simulation for past climate, evaluate performance)
• Hire and/or allocate (2) existing postdocs to work on the project.
• Discuss with UNSA partners and decide on/refine the model grid configurations and key research questions.
• Purchase local storage and download and collect reanalysis data and CMIP6 GCM simulation data for past and future
climate simulations.
• Create an initial configurations of RCM on OU OSCER and NSF Supercomputer at Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)
for Peru region and test several physics options for short 1-year long past climate simulations with reanalysis boundary
conditions and optimize the physics configurations.
• Complete one 10-year run for past climate, and evaluate the simulation against observations and the reanalysis dataset.
• Run hydrology model for the 10-year period and evaluate the simulations.
• Provide simulation data to other groups working on impact models.
• Training UNSA scientists in running the RCM and hydrology models and publish past climate simulation results.
• Work with UNSA on setting up a supercomputing center if so desired.

Year 2 (Run RCM system for future climate, examine impacts of climate changes)
• Run 10-20 years of future climate downscaling for A2 emission or Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios.
• Assist UNSA scientists to run the RCM on their local computer, at reduced resolution is necessary, for another emission/RCP
scenario.
• Analyze the simulation output to examine climate change and variability in precipitation amount, intensity and distribution
changes, intensity and frequency of severe high impact weather events, flooding and draught conditions, temperature and
humidity ranges and diurnal cycles, etc.
• Provide data to and work with other groups in assessing the impacts of the local climate changes.
• Collaboratively analyze the simulations with UNSA and write up results for publication.

Year 3 (Run mini-ensemble of RCM for future climate periods, access impacts and uncertainties)
• Re-run the RCM with different land surface model options (WRF Noah-MP vs. CLM) and precipitation microphysics options
to form a mini-ensemble.
• Analyze the simulations to examine change and variability in precipitation, severe weather events, flooding and draught
conditions, etc., and the uncertainties across the ensemble members.
• Provide data to and work with other OU and UNSA groups in assessing the impacts of climate changes.
 Deliverables (from final Proposal)
Year 1
• Establish OU and UNSA research team, and hire and/or allocate (2) postdocs to work on the project. (Oct-Dec 2020)
• Discuss with UNSA partners and decide on/refine the model grid configurations and key research questions. (Oct 2020)
• Purchase compute nodes and storage and install them to OU OSCER supercomputer (Dec 2020).
• Start working with UNSA on the plan for establishing a supercomputer center at UNSA, including computer hardware configurations and machine
room requirements (space, power, cooling), quotes from potential vendors, system management and training needs. (Oct-Dec 2020).
• Download and collect reanalysis data and CMIP6 GCM simulation data for past and future climate simulations. (Jan 2021)
• Create an initial configurations of RCM at OU OSCER and test several physics options for short 1-year long past climate simulations with reanalysis
boundary conditions and optimize the physics configurations. (Jan 2021)
• Training UNSA researchers in running the RCM and hydrology models on OU’s supercomputer, or at reduced resolutions locally. (Feb – May 2021)
• Complete one 10-year run for past climate, and evaluate the simulation against observations and the reanalysis dataset. (Jan – May 2021)
• Run hydrology model for the 10-year period and evaluate the simulations (Apr – May 2021)
• Analyze and publish results of past climate simulations, including validation and calibration. (Jun – Sep 2021)
• Provide simulation data to other groups working on impact models (Jun 2021)
• Finalize the UNSA Supercomputing Center configuration and plan and assist UNSA with hardware purchases when needed. Provide consultation
and necessary training for system managers. (Mar 2021)
Year 2
• Run 10-20 years of future climate downscaling for 1-2 emission scenarios (Oct – Dec 2021)
• Assist UNSA students and scientists to run the RCM on their supercomputer when available, for an additional emission scenario and/or for a
different period (Jun - Dec 2021)
• Collaboratively analyze the simulation output together to examine climate change and variability in precipitation amount, intensity and
distribution changes, intensity and frequency of severe high impact weather events, flooding and draught conditions, temperature and humidity
ranges and diurnal cycles, etc. (Jan – Jul 2022)
• Provide data to and work with other groups in assessing the impacts of the local climate changes (Jun 2022)
• Organize a Science Workshop at OU or UNSA to report on research results, and write co-authored journal papers. (Jul – Sep 2022)
Year 3
• Run the RCM with different land surface model options (WRF Noah-MP vs. CLM) and precipitation microphysics options to form a mini-ensemble
(Oct 2022 – Jun 2023)
• Analyze the simulations to examine change and variability in precipitation, severe weather events, flooding and draught conditions, etc., and the
uncertainties across the ensemble members (Jan 2023 – Aug. 2023)
• Provide data to and work with other OU and UNSA groups in assessing the impacts of climate changes (Jan – Jul 2023)
• Write co-authored papers for journal publications, and prepare technical reports (Aug – Sep 2023)
• Deliver a final optimized RCM system to UNSA (Sep 2023).
Timeline and Milestones
 Weather and Climate Modeling Capabilities at OU
• OU, led by CAPS, which is one of the first National Science Founcation Science
and Technology Center (STC) established to solve the problem of thunderstorm
prediction, is a world leading center for convective-scale simulations and
predictions, and for developing advanced prediction systems (e.g., ARPS) and
tools and achieving such goals using the largest supercomputers.
• Leverage such capabilities and experience, we were one of the first groups to perform
regional climate simulations at cloud resolving resolutions.
• OU has OSCER supercomputer that can be tapped for such simulations. Much
more computing resources (order of magnitude more) are available at NSF
supercomputer centers (such as Texas Advanced Computing Center), where
most of CAPS’s forecasting and climate simulations are carried out. They are
obtained through proposal processes at no cost to OU, and they are not limited
to the use by NSF projects.
• Each year, CAPS obtains tens of millions of CPU hours on NSF supercomputers.
 Capacity building at UNSA and OU
• Such a project provides impetus for UNSA to establish a moderate-sized supercomputing
center, that can be used for both regional climate simulations and by many other driplines,
and for running other impact models within and outside this program. OU OSCER can help
here.
• The proposed effort can help place UNSA and Peru at the forefront of regional climate
research in South America, possibly surpassing Brazil and Argentina in terms of modeling
capabilities.
• The simulation output will an extremely valuable data set that is not available else where,
and can be used to drive many downstream impact models, carry out related research, and
provide guidance and suggest mitigation strategies to policy makers.
• Such efforts can help enhance OU’s regional climate modeling and research capabilities ( so
far OU is well known for weather and less so for climate modeling), and provide a framework
for integrating diverse groups on campus interested in climate change and impacts, mitigation
and adaptation policies, and the society sustainability issues.
• Within OU, it brings together CAPS, CS-CSAC, Meteorology and Civil Engineering/Water
Center, each providing complementary capabilities and expertise.
• The project will contribute directly to OU’s new strategic research priority on Energy,
Environment and Sustainability, and will help OU in securing funding in climate research and
related areas from, e.g., DOE, DOI, NOAA and NSF.
 Computing Resources
One 10-year simulation using the 15/3 km nested grids is estimated to need 2
weeks to complete using 2000 CPU cores.

Add compute nodes to OU OSCER supercomputer

• About 2000 CPU cores as add-on to OU’s OSCER supercomputer as “condominium“ nodes,
at ~$300K plus $60K for dedicated data storage. These nodes will be owned by the project,
but managed as part of the current OSCER supercomputer.
Use NSF Xsede Supercomputers, at, e.g., TACC (Texas Advanced Computing Center).
• Will also apply for allocations on NSF Supercomputers via a proposal process to sumplement
the computational needs of the project.
• The Xsede systems are heavily used though - fewer experiments can be completed without
dedicated system/nodes, and it will be difficult to UNSA collaborators to use these systems
(unless they are physically at OU).
Establish a mid-sized supercomputing center at UNSA
• Estimated costs for a mid-size supercomputer with ~2000 cores.
• 32 nodes with Dell R6525, 2 x AMD EPYC 32-core, 128 GB RAM, networked via InfiniBand
and Gigibit Ethernet, providing 2048 CPU-cores.
• A standalone system at UNSA, the estimated cost is $520K (Vender quote to OU). Building
space, power, cooling, world-facing network, and system management costs are extra.
• OU’s OSCER should be able to provide assistance/consulting with the design and RPF of such
a system at additional fee.
Linkage to Other Research Areas and Proposed Efforts
• The high-resolution downscaling output can be used as input to
many downstream impact models and for research proposed by
other groups, including possible health and society
impact/mitigation models.
• We can use precipitation reanalysis proposed in a project led by
Pierre Kirstetter for verification of past climate simulations, and
collaborate with their team on future hydrology modeling.
• The RCM output can also be used to drive local air quality models,
a component of the project proposed by Dr. Jens Redemann.
• The projected changes to local weather, as outlined earlier, will
provide information to policy makers and researchers in
developing mitigation and adaptation strategies and policies.
• The linkages to and collaborations with specific groups and faculty
at UNSA will be developed through discussions with UNSA.
• The OU team will provide training and assistance to UNSA in
setting up computing and modeling systems, and host long term
visitors from UNSA in this project.
 Project Team and Areas of Expertise
• Dr. Ming Xue, Director of Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS), and
Weathernews Chair Professor, School of Meteorology (mxue@ou.edu, 4058260279)
• Expertise: Weather and climate modeling, including modeling system development and
applications, numerical weather prediction, severe weather and quantitative
precipitation forecasting, land surface process and boundary layer modeling, radar and
satellite data assimilation, and ensemble forecasting.
• Dr. Yang Hong, Professor of Hydrology and Remote Sensing. School of Civil Engineering and
Environmental Sciences, Director of Hydrology & Water Security Program.
• Expertise: Hydrological modeling and water resources engineering; hydrometeorology;
climate change and Geospatial analysis; natural hazard and disaster monitoring,
prediction and mitigation; and environmental planning and sustainable development.
• Dr. Elinor Martin, Assistant Professor of School of Meteorology, and Faculty Member of the
South-Central Climate Science and Adaptation Center
• Expertise: Climate variability and climate change, precipitation variability, weather and
climate extremes, and tropical meteorology.
• Dr. Renee A. McPherson, University Director for the South Central Climate Adaptation Science
Center, Associate Professor of Geography and Environmental Sustainability
• Expertise: Climate Adaptation, Physical & Applied Climatology, Climate Variability &
Change, Land-Air-Vegetation Interactions, Climate Observing Systems.
• Dr. Xiao-Ming Hu, Senior Research Scientist, Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms
• Expertise: Regional climate modeling, boundary layer and land surface process modeling,
air quality modeling, complex terrain modeling
 Project Budget
• 0.5 - 1 month of salary support is requested for each of the 4
faculty PIs (Xue, Martin, McPherson, Hong) each year.
• 6 months of salary is requested/year for Sr. Scientist Xiao-Ming
Hu in CAPS, who will act as the project manager. He will also be
responsible for the enhancement and setup of the RCM, and for
running some of the simulations. CAPS Sr. Scientist Keith Brewster
will be supported at 2.5 months/year to contribute to the
simulations and data analyses.
• 2.0 FTE post-docs are budgeted to work on RCM simulation and
data analysis, land surface process and hydrology modeling. A
total of 10 months of system admin support over 3 years are
requested.
• $360K hardware fund for ~2000 cores and ~500TB of storage at
OU.
• Travel ($15K), publication ($6K) and material ($2.5K) are
requested each year. 2 PCs will be purchased in the 1st year.
• The total budget for three years is $2,064K.
Thanks!
Questions?