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| Canadian Mesoscale Compressible Community (MC2) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Canadian Mesoscale Compressible Community (MC2) |
| Developer | Environment and Climate Change Canada, Meteorological Research Division |
| Initial release | 1990s |
| Latest release | ongoing |
| Operating system | Linux, Unix |
| Programming language | Fortran (programming language), C (programming language) |
| Genre | Numerical weather prediction, Atmospheric model |
Canadian Mesoscale Compressible Community (MC2) The Canadian Mesoscale Compressible Community (MC2) is a nonhydrostatic, compressible, limited-area atmospheric model developed for numerical weather prediction and research by scientists associated with Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Meteorological Research Division, and collaborating institutions such as the University of Toronto and the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. The model has been used for mesoscale forecasting, convection studies, and air quality applications and interfaces with operational systems from agencies like the Meteorological Service of Canada and research projects funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
MC2 is a three-dimensional, fully compressible, nonhydrostatic model designed for regional prediction and scientific study, supporting nested grids and variable-resolution domains for high-resolution simulations over areas including Ontario, Quebec, the Hudson Bay, and Arctic regions near Nunavut. The system integrates dynamical cores, physical parameterizations, and data assimilation interfaces used by partners such as Canadian Space Agency projects and international collaborations including World Meteorological Organization initiatives, the Global Atmosphere Watch, and bilateral research with institutions like National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts scientists.
MC2 traces its origins to mesoscale modelling efforts in the 1980s and 1990s within Environment Canada laboratories and university groups including McGill University and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Key milestones include conversion to a nonhydrostatic compressible framework influenced by theoretical work from Jules Charney derivations and numerical techniques promoted by groups at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University. Collaborative development involved exchanges with researchers at Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis and participation in field campaigns like the Pacific Storms Experiment and the ArcticNet programs, leading to operational testing alongside systems from Canadian Hurricane Centre and research integrations with Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory.
The MC2 dynamical core solves the compressible Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere using terrain-following vertical coordinates and finite-difference discretization influenced by schemes developed at National Center for Atmospheric Research and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Time integration uses semi-implicit, semi-Lagrangian techniques similar to approaches used at Météo-France and Met Office, enabling stable large time steps on mesoscale grids; nested grid capabilities mirror strategies employed by the Weather Research and Forecasting Model community. The model supports explicit representation of convection at high resolution comparable to setups used by University of Oklahoma and Colorado State University research groups.
MC2 includes parameterizations for microphysics, planetary boundary layer, radiation, and land-surface processes, drawing on schemes developed at institutions like University of British Columbia and McGill University. Microphysics options reflect work from University of Washington and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, while planetary boundary layer turbulence formulations are comparable to those used by NOAA/ESRL and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Land-surface interactions can incorporate vegetation and snow treatments informed by the Canadian Land Surface Scheme and studies performed by Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis.
The codebase is implemented primarily in Fortran (programming language) with supporting C (programming language) components and parallelized using Message Passing Interface and domain decomposition strategies employed in high-performance computing centers such as Compute Canada and the National Research Council (Canada). MC2 has been run on supercomputers at facilities associated with Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network and adopted profiling and optimization techniques used by teams at Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory for scalable simulations. Input/output follows conventions compatible with NetCDF and coupling frameworks used in multi-model projects like Coupled Model Intercomparison Project.
MC2 has been applied to case studies of severe convection, winter storms affecting locations such as Toronto, Montréal, and Halifax, and Arctic meteorology relevant to Iqaluit operations and Nunavut research. It has supported air quality modelling in collaboration with Ontario Ministry of the Environment-linked studies and operational forecasting experiments run by the Meteorological Service of Canada and academic partners like University of Western Ontario. The model has been used in climate downscaling projects coordinated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regional assessment activities and in support of emergency management agencies such as Public Safety Canada during high-impact weather events.
Validation efforts for MC2 include comparative studies with observations from networks like the Canadian Precipitation Analysis, radiosonde arrays maintained by Meteorological Service of Canada, and remote sensing platforms operated by the Canadian Space Agency and international partners including NASA and European Space Agency. Performance assessments have been published alongside evaluations of models from Environment and Climate Change Canada, Met Office, and ECMWF, with community intercomparisons at workshops hosted by organizations such as the American Meteorological Society and the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.
MC2 is distributed under license arrangements coordinated by Environment and Climate Change Canada with academic and research groups; community support has involved code repositories, user workshops, and collaborative networks including members from Universidad de Chile, University of Tokyo, and European partners. Training and documentation have been provided at conferences hosted by entities like the American Geophysical Union and through summer schools affiliated with University of Toronto and national research consortia, fostering a user base across Canadian and international institutions.
Category:Atmospheric models Category:Numerical weather prediction