Ongoing Climate Research

@TERI

Saurabh Bhardwaj
Centre for Global Environment Research,
Earth Science and Climate Change Division
Outline of the talk
• Background
• Three forked formulation to follow

• Process models

• Resources at TERI

• Goals
 Three forked formulation

 Quantified uncertainty measures

 Enclosure of regional processes
 Downscaled information for better impacts
assessments

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

Fork I: Quantified uncertainity measures
Observational Importance:
The high resolution
availability of both spatial
and temporal data is
required to quantify address
the uncertainity in models:

• All the states do not have

equal number of
meteorological stations

• The observations of other

variables (like temperature,
windspeed and radiation
variables) are available only
at selected stations for a long
period
Fork II: Enclosure of regional processes
Early climate models as we know started at
Mid-1970s
Since then each decade the improvement of
including local processes have become very
essential
Presently, we are moving towards a Global
Earth System Model which can include the
regional processes, however what spatial
scale the model should use is an issue.
Better representation of the regional
processes are essential to resolve the
climatic variability

It has been found, over Asia, the three

significant physical processes are (Source:
Congbin Fu, 2002)
Land use and land cover changes and
vegetation, Aerosol forcing, Oceanic
transport of heat

Hence inclusion of Earth system processes

becomes essential in models
Fork III: Downscaled information for
better impacts assessments
Improvements in Grid resolution
• The evaluation of the Climate models has
become an essential pre-requisite to
understand the Earth’s climate system

• A Model Intercomparison Project is an

approach to model verification and they
are part of community analysis and
verification/activity.

• Intergovernmental Panel for Climate

Change has started its MIP programs
with Atmospheric Models in 1995 till
today with CMIP (Coupled Ocean
Atmospheric Models).
 Regional Downscaling Model
PRECIS (Providing Regional Climate for Impact Studies) for
Impact Assessment studies over Indian region

 PRECIS is a dynamical downscaling tool

 To run the model, lateral and surface boundary conditions-
HadAM3 (3.75x2.5 deg)
 Experiment conducted: Base line (1961-90),
A2 & B2 (2071-2100)
 Study Domain 50-380N, 650-1000E
 Horizontal Surface resolutions 0.440~50km
 Vertical resolution 19levels
(Surface to the top of the atmosphere)
A2

The A2 scenarios are of a more divided world. The A2 family of scenarios is

characterized by:
 A world of independently operating, self-reliant nations.
 Continuously increasing population.
 Regionally oriented economic development.
 Slower and more fragmented technological changes and improvements to
per capita income.

B2

The B2 scenarios are of a world more divided, but more ecologically friendly.
The B2 scenarios are characterized by:
 Continuously increasing population, but at a slower rate than in A2.
 Emphasis on local rather than global solutions to economic, social and
environmental stability.
 Intermediate levels of economic development.
 Less rapid and more fragmented technological change than in A1 and B1.
 Mean Monsoon Pattern in PRECIS baseline simulation

It is able to capture the major features but overestimates the rainfall

in few regions - over Himalayan belt, few parts of central India and
WRF lecture series, Bergen
1st Sept 2010
westNorway
coast.
 Extreme - scenario Moderate-scenario

1st Sept 2010 WRF lecture series, Bergen

Norway
Annual Mean Temperature Climatology Comparison for
IMD and PRECIS

The overall pattern of the temperature is well captured by PRECIS

over South Indian region, however over the Central and North Indian
region there is negative bias of reduced temperature in model when
1st Sept 2010 WRF lecture series, Bergen
comparedNorway to observation.
 Extreme-scenario Moderate-scenario

1st Sept 2010 WRF lecture series, Bergen

Norway
Details of the Super Computing Facility

Wipro Supernova SN2007A

• 128 Cores of Intel Xeon 2.83 GHz with 1333 MHz FSB
• 128 Gb ddr2 667 FBDIMM RAM
• 20 Gb ps Infiniband Connectivity
• 16 TB Local Parallel File Storage
• IPMI based advanced management tools for inband and outband
management support
• Redundant 20 Gb ps DDR infiniband Switching
• 1Gb ps Ethernet for management
• Debian GNU/Linux stable distribution with WIPRO’s enhancement as
the operating system
• Gluster software
• Linpack performance per 1U Twin server (2 dual CPU Server in 1U
space) -181.12 G Flop/s
• Total Peak Performance for the system-1448.96 GFlop/s
• Project Maximum Performance of the system-1014 GFlop/s
Global Climate Simulations @ TERI: an
Initiative GOALS:
 To enhance the climate modeling activities at TERI.

 To address the key important issues in the climate system

models (for ex: the tele connection patterns, the monsoon
simulation over the South-Asian region etc.)

 Determine the climate tipping points with the help of

climate change simulations and thenceforth influence on
the impacts on different sectors.

Global Coupled Climate System Model

We are presently using Community Climate System Model Version
3 for Global Climate Simulations.
Model Used:
 Community Climate System Model Version 3 from the National Centre for
Atmospheric Research.
 The model is a coupled climate system model which is comprised of
 atmospheric model (Community Atmosphere Model version 3.0),
 ocean model (Parallel Ocean Program, version 1.0),
 land model (Community Land model version 3.0), and
 sea ice model (Community Sea Ice Model 3.0).
 a coupler which acts as the main link between the sub models.
 Test run simulation details
 CCSM3 simulation is being performed for 100 years of which 2 years
simulation results are presented here, the qualitative assessment would
be done after performing the 100year simulation.
 Details of the testrun
 T42 resolution (300km x 300km) horizontal and 26 levels in vertical
for atmosphere,
 POP model with (110kmx110km) horizontal resolution and 40 levels
in vertical.
Test run outputs from CCSM3
Way Forward
 We are planning to conduct a longer run of 100 years
of control and 100 years of future with different SRES
scenarios.