Modeling Air-Land-Sea Interaction using Regional Climate System Model for Monterey Bay, CA

Air-land-sea interaction in the vicinity of Monterey Bay, CA is simulated and investigated using a Regional Climate System Model (RCSM). Several coastal processes and submesoscale features can be fully resolved using the RCSM while these processes and features are poorly represented in the state-of-the-art global climate model, resulting in significant and systematic biases in the long term climate integration. The current RCSM couples the Weather Research and Forecast with Community Land Model version3 (WRFCLM3) and a full function coastal ocean model, which is based on the non-hydrostatic Monterey Bay Area Regional Model (MBARM). Our model results show the importance of detailed ocean feedback due to unique coastal dynamic. The comparison with observation indicates the requirement of accurate representation of ocean surface. In the ocean, the coastal upwelling and submesoscale gyres are well-simulated in the RCSM. The daily sea (land) breeze circulations and commonly-seen Santa Cruz Eddy (SCE) are fully resolved resulting from the sea surface temperature feedback and adequate resolution in the coastal margin.