Influence of the Boundary Forcing on the Internal Variability of a Regional Climate Model

Abstract

The internal variability of a ten-member ensemble of the regional climate model REMO over Europe is investigated. It is shown that the annual cycle of internal variability behaves differently compared to earlier studies that focused on other regions. To gain better insight into the dependence of the internal variability on the boundary forcing variability, a circulation type classification is performed on the forcing data. It can be shown that especially in the winter season internal variability is dependent on the circulation type included in the boundary forcing, whereas in the summer season the level and pattern of internal variability is rather independent from the circulation type of the driving field. It is concluded that for Europe the internal variability of REMO in winter is governed by circulation patterns related to the North-Atlantic Oscillation, whereas in summer local processes play a bigger role.