Description of the Canadian regional climate model

Simulation of regional climate by limited-area model coupled with global low-resolution model is becoming a standard approach to achieve high-resolution climate projections at a computationally affordable cost. A regional climate model (RCM) based on a state-of-the-art numerical formulation is under development at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal. A brief description of this Canadian RCM (CRCM) is given. The characteristics of its dynamical formulation and the processes involved in its physical parameterisation are described. Results of a short simulation show that CRCM develops fine-scale features of climatological interest.