Sensitivity evaluation of the different physical parameterizations schemes in regional climate model RegCM4.5 for simulation of air temperature and precipitation over North and West of Iran

Abstract In this research the dynamic downscaling method by Regional Climate Model (RegCM4.5) was used to assess the performance and sensitivity of seasonal simulated North and West of Iran (NI&WI) climate factors to different convection schemes, and transforms the large-scale simulated climate variables into land surface states over the North of Iran (NI) and West of Iran (WI). A 30-year (1986–2015) numerical integration simulation of climate over NI&WI was conducted using the regional climate model RegCM4.5 nested in one-way ERA-Interim reanalysis data. The Grell, Kuo and MIT-Emanuel cumulus convection with Holtslag and University of Washington (UW) planetary boundary layer (PBL) parameterization schemes were applied in the running of RegCM4.5 to test their capability in simulating precipitation and temperature in winter-spring (January–April) over NI and WI. The results demonstrated that the RegCM4.5 model has a good potential for simulating the variables and trend of surface temperature over the NI and WI region. Magnitude of the model bias for land surface temperature over different regions of Iran varies by convection parameterization schemes. In most cases, the root mean square error between post-processed simulated seasonal average temperature and observation value was less than 1 °C, but there is a systematic “cold bias”. In general, with respect to land surface temperature simulations, a better performance is obtained when using post-processing model’s data with Holtslag PBL-Grell and Holtslag PBL-Kuo configuration schemes, compared to the other simulations, over the NI&WI region. Also, the UW PBL convection schemes show a relatively excellent spatial correlations and normalized standard deviations closer to 1 for thirty-year seasonal land surface temperature anomalies over the entire NI&WI region. However, the simulation accuracy of model for precipitation is not as optimal as for temperature. The dominant feature in model simulations is a dry bias with the largest average value (∼1.04 mm/day) over NI region, while the lowest mean bias precipitation (∼−0.47 mm/day), mainly located in WI region. In the comparison of six configuration convection schemes, the Emanuel scheme has been proven to be the most accurate for simulating winter-spring seasonal mean precipitation over NI&WI region. The accuracy of the scheme also showed great difference in simulated station interpolation of precipitation, which urges the improvement for the simulation capability of spatial distribution of precipitation. In general, for seasonal variation of precipitation, the Emanuel convection with two (Holtslag, UW) PBL configuration schemes outperforms with a good correlation score between 0.7−0.8 and normalized standard deviations closer to 1.