Evaluation of present climate for Argentina using a high resolution global model (JMA/MRI)

JOSEFINA BLÁZQUEZ, MARIO N. NUÑEZ AND SHOJI KUSUNOKI

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Otro; Kick off meeting de CLARIS LPB; 2008

The Meteorological Research Institute together with the Japan Meteorological Agency have started new global warming projections with 20-km mesh atmospheric global circulation model (AGCM). This study is conducted under the framework of the Innovative Program of Climate Change Projection for the 21st century (KAKUSHIN program) which is a 5-year research program started in April 2007.In this study, we use the outputs of these experiments to evaluate the present climate for Argentina (1979-2003) comparing the simulated temperature and precipitation data with meteorological stations data. Differences between simulated and observed temperature are very small in the north east end central Argentina and the annual cycle of mean observed and simulated temperature have a good agreement  in SESA (South-eastern South America) and CARG (Central Argentina) regions. Differences between simulated and observed precipitation are very small in summer in the center and north east of Argentina. In CU (Cuyo) region, the model and the observations have a very good agreement in the annual cycle of precipitation. However, in SEP (South-eastern Pampas) region, the model underestimates the precipitation every month. In LPB (La PLata Basin) region, the model overestimates the precipitation in the winter months and underestimates it in the rainy season (autumn and spring).