Simulating tropical cyclone-climate interactions under anthropogenic global warming using high-resolution configurations of the Community Earth System Model (CESM)

Ryan Sriver, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Usage Details

We will use Blue Waters to investigate tropical cyclone-climate interactions within Earth's coupled ocean-atmosphere system, using the Community Earth System Model (CESM). This project builds on the PIs' recent Blue Waters allocation analyzing tropical cyclones in high-resolution configurations of CESM under constant present-day climate conditions. Here we propose to expand these existing simulations into a more comprehensive climate change experiment, in order to analyze potential changes in cyclone activity and climate feedbacks in the model under anthropogenic global warming. The modeling tasks will be performed by co-PI Li, who is fully supported for the duration of the project by an NCSA Faculty Fellowship awarded to PI Sriver. As clearly demonstrated below, the anticipated expense of the proposed simulations is considerably outside the capabilities of traditional XSEDE resources, and it is for this reason we are requesting use of Blue Waters to pursue this investigation. The proposed runs will provide the critical next step in settling the longstanding debate about the role of the tropical cyclones in influencing Earth's climate and how these events may change in the future.