Development of WACCM with the non-hydrostatic MPAS-A Dynamical core

This is an in-person talk.

Geospace applications require atmospheric models with tops in excess of 500 km, well into the upper thermosphere. In these regions the accuracy of the hydrostatic approximation becomes problematic. Hence, there is an increasing need for whole atmospheric models with non-hydrostatic dynamical cores. The Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with thermosphere and ionosphere extension (WACCM-X), developed at NCAR, extends from the Earth surface to the exobase (~600 km). However, the dynamical cores used in current WACCM-X configurations are based on the hydrostatic assumption. As part of the NCAR SIMA project, we have recently developed and tested the Specified Chemistry Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (SC-WACCM) with the non-hydrostatic Model for Prediction Across Scales-Atmosphere (MPAS-A) dynamical core. This is the first step towards the final goal of using the non-hydrostatic MPAS-A with WACCM-X for geospace applications. In this