Nesting simulations at two regions on the Iberian Peninsula

The Great Lisbon Area (GLA), Portugal, and Galicia Autonomous Community, Spain, are two regions of the Iberian Peninsula located near the coast, but with a different orientation regarding the dominant synoptic circulation. Both regions have a relative orographic complexity each one with specificity's, i. e.: Galicia has a very gullied coast, where the terrain slope varies enormously, and the GLA has an estuarine zone with some surrounding hills. Taking into account these peculiar terrain features, a model with nesting facility (MEMO model) was applied over these two regions and its response evaluated. Therefore, three domains were chosen for the two regions, with an increasing resolution and a decreasing size. The wind fields resulting from the simulations were analysed, the influences of the local features on the synoptic pattern were observed and the relative importance of this fact for the two simulated regions was compared. To support this analysis, a study on the terrain slope values for all the simulated domains was performed. The analysis of the results shows that the numerical model has a consistent performance with measured data, and the differences and similarities between the two regions were highlighted.