Recent Advances in Regional Climate System Modeling and ClimateChange Analyses of Extreme Heat

During the period May 2003 to May 2004, there were two CEC/PIER funded primary research activities by the Atmosphere and Ocean Sciences Group/Earth Science Division at LBNL. These activities are the implementation and testing of the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Land Model (CLM) into MM5, and the analysis of extreme heat days under a new set of climate simulations. The new version of MM5,MM5-CLM, has been tested for a 90 day snowmelt period in the northwestern U.S. Results show that this new code upgrade, as compared to the MM5-NOAH, has improved snowmelt, temperature, and precipitation when compared to observations. These are due in part to a subgrid scheme,advanced snow processes, and advanced vegetation. The climate change analysis is the upper and lower IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios, representing fossil fuel intensive and energy conserving future emission scenarios, and medium and low sensitivity Global Climate Models. Results indicate that California cities will see increases in the number of heat wave and temperature threshold days from two to six times.These results may be viewed as potential outcomes based on today's decisions on emissions