Online dynamical downscaling of temperature and precipitation within the <i>i</i>LOVECLIM model (version 1.1)

Quiquet, Aurélien; Roche, Didier M.; Dumas, Christophe; Paillard, Didier

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-453-2018

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-453-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

The iLOVECLIM earth system model

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-453-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 1

Model description paper

|

01 Feb 2018

Model description paper |

| 01 Feb 2018

Online dynamical downscaling of temperature and precipitation within the iLOVECLIM model (version 1.1)

Aurélien Quiquet, Didier M. Roche, Christophe Dumas, and Didier Paillard

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Final revised paper (published on 01 Feb 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 01 Jun 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of the manuscript submitted by Aurelien Quiquet, D. M. Roche, C. Dumas, and D. Paillard', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Jul 2017
- AC1: 'Reply to Referee #1', Aurélien Quiquet, 13 Oct 2017
RC2: 'Review of Quiquet et al.: Online dynamical downscaling of temperature and precipitation within the iLOVECLIM model (version 1.1)', Jeremy Fyke, 25 Jul 2017
- AC2: 'Reply to Referee #2 (J. Fyke)', Aurélien Quiquet, 13 Oct 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Aurélien Quiquet on behalf of the Authors (13 Oct 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (17 Oct 2017) by Gerd A. Folberth

RR by Jeremy Fyke (30 Oct 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of revised Quiquet et al. manuscript: Online dynamical downscaling of temperature and precipitation within the iLOVECLIM model (version 1.1)

Thanks to the authors for revising based on my comments and also comments of Reviewer 1. I’d suggest a few more general revisions:

-Abstract: I don’t think it’s correct in this case to state the scheme conserves energy and moisture - particularly the former. Conservation of energy entails much more than conservative interpolation of temperature. For example, can iLOVECLIM, that includes the downscaling scheme, demonstrate a globally closed energy budget, including, e.g., latent heat transformations (such that the net energy change in the system is equal to the net TOA flux)?

-Abstract (and elsewhere): In the Reply to Reviewers the authors write (note paraphrasing) “Regarding the SMB, [grid imprinting issues] presented in the manuscript are not suitable for an ice sheet model forcing” and “Due to the imprint of the coarse resolution model into the current downscaled fields, the latter cannot be used directly into the SMB and need additional steps beyond the scope of this current study…”
Yet in the public-facing manuscript, the authors repeatedly state: “Foreseen applications of this new model feature includes ice sheet model coupling…”. There is an apparent disconnect here, between what the authors honestly think their model is capable of, and how its capabilities are described in the manuscript. The authors need to be more explicit with readers about the applicability of their developments, *as they stand* - for example, if the work presented here is considered an interim benchmark on the way to something that is scientifically useful for, e.g., ice sheet SMB science, this needs to be clearly stated.

-On grid imprinting: I think the reasons for actual grid imprinting are still not described clearly enough for the general reader. Regarding temperature, for example: “This is because our downscaling mostly redistribute (sic) the temperature of a coarse grid point according to the sub-grid elevation starting from the coarse grid information” - is an ambiguous sentence that leaves the reader puzzled (and does not imply that this problem also extends to precipitation, as noted in the Reply to Reviews). Regarding precipitation: even if you took winds into account, it would still be true that the main (only?) effect of downscaling is to redistribute precipitation within a native T21 grid cell. Thus, T21 grid cell imprinting will almost certainly still occur across the location of T21 grid cell boundaries in downscaled precipitation.
As above, I feel the authors should be more transparent with describing the caveats of their approach, particularly with respect to remaining grid imprinting - just so that potential users aren’t surprised/frustrated when actually applying the scheme (or run into issues when they submit science using the scheme to peer review).

-There remain a fairly large number of grammatical errors that the authors could sweep for prior to any official GMD proof-read.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (15 Nov 2017) by Gerd A. Folberth

AR by Aurélien Quiquet on behalf of the Authors (27 Nov 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (28 Nov 2017) by Gerd A. Folberth

AR by Aurélien Quiquet on behalf of the Authors (06 Dec 2017)

Short summary

Earth system models of intermediate complexity generally have a simplified model physics and a coarse model resolution. In this work we present the inclusion of an online dynamical downscaling of temperature and precipitation in such a model. This downscaling explicitly takes into account sub-grid topography. With this new model functionality we are able to simulate temperature and precipitation on a 40 km grid for the whole Northern Hemisphere from the native model resolution.