Regional climate simulations with the Community Earth System Model

The SE dynamical core is tested in baroclinic wave, aquaplanet and full physics configurations to evaluate variable-resolution simulations against uniform high and uniform low-resolution simulations. Different physical parameterization suites are also evaluated to gauge their sensitivity to resolution.

Dry dynamical core variable-resolution cases compare well to high-resolution tests. More recent versions of the atmospheric physics, including cloud schemes for CESM2, are less sensitive to changes in horizontal resolution. Most of the sensitivity is due to sensitivity to time step and interactions between deep convection and large-scale condensation, which is expected from the closure methods.