Boundary topography and model output for "Interaction of the westerlies with the Tibetan Plateau in determining the mei-yu termination"

This dataset contains the boundary topography files and key model outputs used in:

Kong, W., and J. C. H. Chiang, Interaction of the westerlies with the Tibetan Plateau in determining the mei-yu termination. Accepted with minor revision, Journal of Climate, September 2019

Data collection and processing 

Results of the extended Plateau simulations ("Plateau_control", "Plateau_3deg", "Plateau_6deg", "Plateau_10deg")

We used the Community Earth System Model (CESM) 1.2.2 and chose the component set "F_1850_CAM5", which includes the coupler, active atmosphere, land, and ice components, and a data ocean. The atmospheric component is the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) at 0.9x1.25 horizontal resolution and 30 layers of vertical resolution. The sea surface temperature is prescribed using observed monthly climatology. Each simulation was integrated for 25 years; outputs archived here are pentad climatologies derived from the last 20 model years. Please refer to Kong and Chiang (2019) for more details. 

Archived variables: U, V, PRECT, PRECC, PRECL, and Theta_e

Results of the idealized dry dynamical core simulations

We used the finite-volume dynamical core of CAM5, e.g. the component set "F_IDEAL_PHYS". Each simulation was integrated for 5 years; outputs archived here are climatologies derived from the last 3 model years. Please refer to Kong and Chiang (2019) for more details.

Archived variables: U, V, eddy height at 500mb, QG stream function, three-dimensional EP flux

Vertical coordinate

The vertical coordinate of the above model output was interpolated from hybrid coordinate to pressure coordinate using NCAR Command Language function: https://www.ncl.ucar.edu/Document/Functions/Built-in/vinth2p.shtml.

Data description 

Boundary topographies 

• BoundaryTopo.Plateau_xxx.nc files are boundary topography used for the extended Plateau simulations
• BoundaryTopo.dycore_xxx.nc files are boundary topography used for the dry dynamical core simulations 

Files with below naming conventions are outputs of extended Plateau simulations

• Plateau_control.xxx.nc
• Plateau_3deg.xxx.nc
• Plateau_6deg.xxx.nc
• Plateau_10deg.xxx.nc

Files with below naming conventions are outputs of the dynamical core Plateau simulations 

• dycore_Plateau.xxx.nc
• dycore_PlateauS3.xxx.nc
• dycore_PlateauS6.xxx.nc
• dycore_PlateauN3.xxx.nc
• dycore_PlateauN6.xxx.nc