NICAM

What is NICAM?

NICAM is a Nonhydrostatic ICosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM),
used as a Global Cloud Resolving Model (GCRM).
A 3.5km-mesh global simulation is already performed using the Earth Simulator.

See also NICAM official page nicam.jp

NICAM is first developed by H.Tomita (FRCGC, JAMSTEC) and M.Satoh,
and is now under development in cooperation with CCSR and JAMSTEC.

Most recent introduction to NICAM is Satoh et al.(2008, J.Comp. Physics).
Miura et al.(2007, Science) has just appeared (14 Dec. 2007).
NICAM is also referred to in the article of Science (Kerr, 2006).

NICAM is also used as a low-resolution Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM),
and as a regional cloud resolving model based on stretched grids (Stretch-NICAM).
Examples of use of these low resolution and regional models can be seen in nicam nwp exp. for research

NICAM is seleceted as one of the target applications of next-generation supurcomputer (reference).
See RIKEN Next-generation supercomputer R&D Center for detail.

Please contact Masaki Satoh if you are interested in NICAM.

• NICAM introduction (pdf,Japanese)
• References
• press
• Project: CREST-GCRM
• Project: KAKUSHIN-GCRM
• nicam nwp exp. for research
• nicam nwp exp.(members only)
• NICAM information (members only)
• NICAM data users (members only)

An Madden-Julian Oscillation event simulated using a global cloud-resolving model. (Miura et al. 2007)

OLR: left MTSAT-1R, right: NICAM (by H.Miura, courtesy of VL)

First realisic experiment (by H.Miura)

OLR (by H.Miura)

Aqua Planet Experiment Gallery (by H.Tomita)

OLR (by H.Miura)

Cloud 3D (by H.Miura) (20MB)

OLR animations (by T.Nasuno)

Cloud top height & shallow cloud water animations (by T.Nasuno)