Sensitivity of ICTP Regional Climate Model (RegCM3) to Initial and Lateral Boundary Conditions

Regional climate simulations require lateral boundary conditions. These are typically reanalysis of past observations or alternatively, output from climate general circulation models. Lateral boundary conditions are available at various temporal and spatial resolutions. At present, spatial resolution of reanalysis datasets ranges from few kilometers, for example, regional reanalysis limited to only single continent, to the coarser but global datasets like ECMWF 40 Years Re-Analysis. While these datasets represent reasonable analyses of 3-D atmospheric as well as surface conditions, their resolutions, the physics of the models used to generate them, and the means of assimilating data into them can produce very different results when used as boundary conditions for regional climate models.