Time mean and variability of the scale-decomposed atmospheric water budget in a 25-year simulation of the Canadian Regional Climate Model over North America

The scaled-decomposed atmospheric water budget over North America is investigated through the analysis of 25 years of simulation by the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) driven by the NCEPNCAR reanalyses for the period 1975-1999. The time average and time variability of the atmospheric water budget for the winter and summer seasons are decomposed into their large-scale and small-scale components to identify the added value of the regional model. For the winter season, the intra-seasonal transient-eddy variance is the main temporal variability. The large- and small-scale terms are of the same order of magnitude, and are large over both coasts and weak over the continent. For the summer season, the time-mean atmospheric water budget is rather different to that of winter, with maximum values over the south-eastern part of the continent. The summer intra-seasonal variance is about twice stronger than in winter and also dominates the variability, but the intermonthly variance is non-negligible and can be in part associated to North American Monsoon System. Over the continent, the intra-seasonal climatological variance is dominated by the variability of the small scales. The small scales, that is those scales that are only resolved in the regional model but not in the reanalyses, contribute to the added value in a regional climate simulation. In the winter season, the added value of the CRCM is large and dominated by oceanic forcing, while in summer, it is dominant (larger than the large scales) and controlled mainly by convective processes.