© crown copyright met office an introduction to precis precis workshop, university of reading, 13...

© Crown copyright Met Office

An Introduction to PRECIS

PRECIS Workshop, University of Reading, 13th-17th May, 2013

Objectives of this workshop…

• Refresh and extend knowledge of regional modelling with PRECIS system, particularly,

• Essentials of regional climate modelling, understanding uncertainties in climate projections and how to construct future climate scenarios to assess the impacts of climate change as well as how to work with climate model ensembles

• Learn how to set up a PRECIS experiment and evaluate the model outputs

• Learn some PRECIS tools for analysing outputs including extremes

• Have opportunities to meet with individuals or small groups to discuss any specific issues you have

• Other needs? Let us know, and we will try our best to help.


Contents

Table of Contents

• What is PRECIS?

• Why was PRECIS developed?

• Who is PRECIS for?

• Where PRECIS fits in

• What is RCM and what information does it need?


What is PRECIS?

• Providing REgional Climates for Impact Studies

• It can be applied to any area of the globe

• Used to generate detailed projections of future climate

• A simple user interface to set up and run an RCM

• PRECIS also provides utilities for users to manipulate RCM output


Why was PRECIS developed?

• UNFCCC requirement to assess national vulnerability and plans for adaptation

• Addressing technology transfer and capacity building • RCMs resolve local details and provide realistic extreme events for

impact studies• Meet needs for countries more vulnerable to climate change • allowing those countries to generate their own national scenarios of

climate change for use in impact studies

• The PC version of PRECIS addresses the UNFCCC requirement on the UK to assist capacity building and technology transfer


Who is PRECIS for?

• Anyone interested in understanding climate change and its potential impacts

• Highly relevant for scientists involved in vulnerability and adaptation studies (particularly for National Communications documents)


Where PRECIS fits in

IPCC

National research centres

You!

PRECIS


What is a Regional Climate Model? • Mathematical model of the atmosphere and land

surface (and sometimes the ocean)• ‘High’ resolution: Produces data in

grid cells < 50km in size• Spans a limited area (region) of the globe

• Contains representations of many of the important physical processes within the climate system

• Cloud• Radiation• Rainfall• Atmospheric aerosols• Soil hydrology• Etc.


Boundary conditions• Limited area regional models require

meteorological information at their edges (lateral boundaries)

• These data provide the interface between the regional model’s domain and the rest of the world• The climate of a region is always

strongly influenced by the global situation

• These data are necessarily provided by global general circulation models (GCMs) • or from observed datasets with global

coverage (re-analysis experiments)


The components of PRECIS

• The RCM

• User interface to design and configure RCM experiments

• Display and data processing software

• Lateral boundary conditions

• Training course and materials

• Technical and Scientific Support

• Website (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/precis)

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/precis


The PRECIS user interface


• Region specification

• Choice of domain

• Land surface configuration

• RCM and Emissions scenario

• Period of the simulation

• Output data

• Run

PRECIS user interface: Main functionality


Example of graphical runtime monitoring

PRECIS user interface


Boundary conditions

• Requests through [email protected]

• LBCs generated from source data automatically as a simulation progresses


How fast does it go?

• 1 core: ~ 2.5 months

• 4 cores:~ 2.75 weeks

• 8 cores:~ 12.5 days

30 year integration, 100x100, 50km grid points

Minimum hardware requirements

• Computer: PC running under the Linux operating system

• Memory : 512MB minimum; 1+ GB recommended

• Minimum 250GB disk space + offline storage for archiving data

• Simulation speed proportional to CPU speed


Support and follow-up

• Support• E-mail to the Hadley Centre ([email protected])

• Online discussion forum hosted by http://climateprediction.net

• Web site• http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/precis• news

• updates

• resources

• Collaboration/workshops


Future developments

• Continuously upgraded to new processors/new Linux

• Ability to run PRECIS RCM from yet more GCMs/Reanalyses

• IPCC AR5 GCMs will become available over the coming year

• No current plans to incorporate RCMs from outside the Hadley Centre

• Intercomparison of results from different RCMs is beneficial but beyond the scope of PRECIS


What PRECIS can deliver

• PRECIS can provide:

• climate scenarios for any region

• an estimate of uncertainty due to different emissions

• an estimate of uncertainty due to climate variability

• Data available from PRECIS

• Comprehensive and consistent meteorological and physical data for the atmosphere and land-surface

• Hourly and daily data as well as longer timescale averages


Summary

• PRECIS: The Hadley Centre’s regional climate modelling system

• Resolution of 50km (25km for small areas)

• Runs on a Linux based PC; supplied on a DVD with sample driving data

• Can be set up by the user over any area of the globe

• Useful for vulnerability and adaptation studies and climate research

• Provides the capacity to locally produce scenarios of climate change

About the schedule…

• Morning session – basic understanding of RCM science including:

• Climate modelling, model evaluation and uncertainties in climate projections

• Climate scenarios construction

• Extreme analysis

• Afternoon session – hands-on practical session• Running PRECIS

• Manipulate model outputs -The practical worksheets give examples of analyses that people often do with regional model data.

(* We’ll also provide a CD so that you can install all the software that we’ll use this week on your own computers together with sample data which You can take this data away to analyse further at your own institutions)

• Do not expect to finish ALL of the practical work!

• Think about which exercises are most relevant to you


Questions

© crown copyright met office an introduction to precis precis workshop, university of reading, 13...

Documents

precis slide

precis precis workshop

rcm precis

precis system

precis fits

components of precis

precis tools

precis experiment