Understanding summer wind systems over the eastern Mediterranean in a high‐resolution climate simulation

Regional and local wind systems are often complex, particularly near coastal areas with a highly variable orography. Thus, the realistic representation of regional wind systems in weather and climate models is of strong relevance. Here, we evaluate the ability of a 13‐year convection‐permitting climate simulation in reproducing the interaction of several regional summer wind systems over the complex orography in the eastern Mediterranean region. The COSMO‐CLM simulations are driven by hourly ERA‐5 reanalysis and have a spatial resolution of 2.8 and 7.0 km. The simulated near‐surface wind fields are compared with unique very high‐resolution wind observations collected within the “Dead Sea Research Venue” project (DESERVE) and data from the Israel Meteorological Service synop network. The high‐resolution COSMO‐CLM simulations largely reproduce the main characteristics of the regional wind systems (Mediterranean and Dead Sea breeze, slope winds in the Judean Mountains and winds along the Jordan Rift valley), whereas ERA‐5 is only able to represent the Mediterranean Sea breeze. The high‐resolution simulations substantially improve the representation of regional winds, particularly over complex orography. Indeed, the 2.8 km simulation outperforms the 7.0 km run, on 88% of the days. Two mid‐July 2015 case studies show that only the 2.8 simulation can realistically simulate the penetration of the Mediterranean Sea Breeze into the Jordan Rift valley and complex interactions with other wind systems like the Dead Sea breeze. Our results may have profound implications for regional weather and climate prediction since very high‐resolution information seems to be necessary to reproduce the main summertime climatic features in this region. We envisage that such simulations may also be required at other regions with complex orography.

In this paper we show that COSMO‐CLM regional climate model simulations at 7.0 (CLM‐7.0) and 2.8km (CLM‐2.8) resolution can realistically reproduce near‐surface regional and local wind systems over the complex orography of the eastern Mediterranean as opposite to coarser resolutions (ERA‐5, 31 km). The Mediterranean and local Dead Sea breezes, slope winds over the Judean Mountains, and winds along the Jordan Rift valley are well represented both climatologically and on individual days. CLM‐2.8 captures the small‐scale variability of the wind field better than CLM‐7.0 particularly near the Dead Sea and on 88% of the days CLM‐2.8 represents wind speed even more realistically than CLM‐7.0. image

German Helmholtz Association (“Changing Earth” program)

AXA Research Fund http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001961

Ministry of Science, Research and Arts

Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers