Multiscale aggregation and disaggregation of precipitation for regional hydroclimatological studies

The use of multigrid methods for climate simulations is illustrated through the application of a regional model to predict precipitation, soil moisture and snow cover in the Olympic and Sierra Nevada Mountains of the Western USA. The model combines a representation of orographic precipitation coupled to a surface energy model which predicts latent and sensible heat fluxes. In the case of the Olympic Mountains, use of the multigrid scheme is shown to improve greatly the representation of vertical wind fields, and hence the precipitation distribution, on the lee side of the mountains. -from Authors