Fifty-Seven-Year California Reanalysis Downscaling at 10 km (CaRD10). Part II: Comparison with North American Regional Reanalysis

The California Reanalysis Downscaling at 10 km (CaRD10) was compared with the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), which is a data assimilation regional analysis at 32-km resolution and 3-hourly output using the Eta Model for the period 1979 through the present using the NCEP/Department of Energy (DOE) reanalysis as lateral boundary conditions. The objectives of this comparison are twofold: 1) to understand the efficacy of regional downscaling and horizontal resolution and 2) to estimate the uncertainties in regional analyses due to system differences. The large-scale component of atmospheric analysis is similar in CaRD10 and NARR. The CaRD10 daily winds fit better to station observations than NARR over ocean where daily variability is large and over land. The daily near-surface temperature comparison shows a similar temporal correlation with observations in CaRD10 and NARR. Several synoptic examples such as the Catalina eddy, coastally trapped wind reversal, and Santa Ana winds are better ...