Impact of Orographic Drag Schemes on East Asia Rainfall

Abstract

Current generation of climate models often has significant biases in mountainous regions where the gradient of elevation is steep, and the terrain is complex. Potential reasons for these biases include under-representation of orographic drag process in climate models. In this study, we assess the impact of orographic drag on East Asia rainfall by comparing the impact of a new orographic drag scheme that considers 3D orographic anisotropy (3D-oro) with a 2-D scheme in a general circulation model. Two sets of simulations (medium-range and seasonal forecast) are carried out for the comparison and validation against observation. It is shown that through local/remote forcing of the drag in the mountainous regions, the 3D-oro alleviates part of the excessive rainfall in west Tibetan Plateau and parts of insufficient rainfall in Southeast China by about 25%∼50% in the January/winter forecasts; it alleviates about 25%∼50% of the rainfall bias in part of south Tibetan Plateau and of East Asia in the July/summer forecasts. The results suggest the importance of improved orographic drag process and its impact in climate modeling for those regions that are prone to significant impact of hydroclimate events.