Project Summary

We will produce a new dataset that provides better projections of regional climate extremes and GL hydrology, including precipitation, evaporation, and runoff, with implications for future lake levels. This will yield, for the first time, reliable data to generate future projections of precipitation IDF curves, a key need for local and regional planning. Through a recent NASA grant (Notaro, PI), Dr. Pengfei Xue (Michigan Technological University) interactively coupled a 3-km non-hydrostatic version of the NASA-Unified Weather Research and Forecasting (NU-WRF) model to the Finite Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) to represent 3D lake circulation and ice motion. Adopting this higher spatial resolution and inclusion of 3D lake processes will address the limitations of the UW-RegCM4 product. Initial results demonstrate a vast reduction in LST and ice cover biases and improvement in lake-atmosphere interactions (which regulate regional climate).