The Global/Regional Integrated Model System (GRIMs): an Update and Seasonal Evaluation

Abstract

The Global/Regional Integrated Model system (GRIMs) is upgraded to version 4.0, with the advancement of the moisture advection scheme and physics package, focusing on the global model program (GMP) for seasonal simulation and climate studies. Compared to the original version 3.1, which was frozen in 2013, the new version shows no Gibbs phenomenon in the moisture and tracer fields by implementing the semi-Lagrangian advection scheme with a better computational efficiency at higher resolution. The performance of the seasonal ensemble simulation (June–August 2017 and December 2016–February 2017) is significantly improved by new physics and ancillary data. The advancement is largest in the stratosphere, where the cold bias is dramatically reduced and the wind bias of the polar jets is alleviated, especially for the winter hemisphere. Noticeable improvements are also found in tropospheric zonal mean circulation, eddy transport, precipitation, and surface air temperature. This allows GRIMs version 4.0 to be used not only for long-term climate simulations, but also for subseasonal-to-seasonal climate prediction.