scholarly journals CAUSES: Attribution of Surface Radiation Biases in NWP and Climate Models near the U.S. Southern Great Plains

2018 ◽  
Vol 123 (7) ◽  
pp. 3612-3644 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Van Weverberg ◽  
C. J. Morcrette ◽  
J. Petch ◽  
S. A. Klein ◽  
H.‐Y. Ma ◽  
...  
2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (18) ◽  
pp. 4831-4843 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Jonathan Gero ◽  
David D. Turner

Abstract A trend analysis was applied to a 14-yr time series of downwelling spectral infrared radiance observations from the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) located at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) site in the U.S. Southern Great Plains. The highly accurate calibration of the AERI instrument, performed every 10 min, ensures that any statistically significant trend in the observed data over this time can be attributed to changes in the atmospheric properties and composition, and not to changes in the sensitivity or responsivity of the instrument. The measured infrared spectra, numbering more than 800 000, were classified as clear-sky, thin cloud, and thick cloud scenes using a neural network method. The AERI data record demonstrates that the downwelling infrared radiance is decreasing over this 14-yr period in the winter, summer, and autumn seasons but it is increasing in the spring; these trends are statistically significant and are primarily due to long-term change in the cloudiness above the site. The AERI data also show many statistically significant trends on annual, seasonal, and diurnal time scales, with different trend signatures identified in the separate scene classifications. Given the decadal time span of the dataset, effects from natural variability should be considered in drawing broader conclusions. Nevertheless, this dataset has high value owing to the ability to infer possible mechanisms for any trends from the observations themselves and to test the performance of climate models.


Tellus B ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret S. Torn ◽  
Sebastien C. Biraud ◽  
Christopher J. Still ◽  
William J. Riley ◽  
Joe A. Berry

2015 ◽  
Vol 213 ◽  
pp. 209-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naama Raz-Yaseef ◽  
Dave P. Billesbach ◽  
Marc L. Fischer ◽  
Sebastien C. Biraud ◽  
Stacey A. Gunter ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 310 ◽  
pp. 108631
Author(s):  
Pradeep Wagle ◽  
Prasanna H. Gowda ◽  
Brian K. Northup ◽  
James P.S. Neel ◽  
Patrick J. Starks ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (20) ◽  
pp. 8275-8298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa S. Bukovsky ◽  
Rachel R. McCrary ◽  
Anji Seth ◽  
Linda O. Mearns

Abstract Global and regional climate model ensembles project that the annual cycle of rainfall over the southern Great Plains (SGP) will amplify by midcentury. Models indicate that warm-season precipitation will increase during the early spring wet season but shift north earlier in the season, intensifying late summer drying. Regional climate models (RCMs) project larger precipitation changes than their global climate model (GCM) counterparts. This is particularly true during the dry season. The credibility of the RCM projections is established by exploring the larger-scale dynamical and local land–atmosphere feedback processes that drive future changes in the simulations, that is, the responsible mechanisms or processes. In this case, it is found that out of 12 RCM simulations produced for the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP), the majority are mechanistically credible and consistent in the mean changes they are producing in the SGP. Both larger-scale dynamical processes and local land–atmosphere feedbacks drive an earlier end to the spring wet period and deepening of the summer dry season in the SGP. The midlatitude upper-level jet shifts northward, the monsoon anticyclone expands, and the Great Plains low-level jet increases in strength, all supporting a poleward shift in precipitation in the future. This dynamically forced shift causes land–atmosphere coupling to strengthen earlier in the summer, which in turn leads to earlier evaporation of soil moisture in the summer, resulting in extreme drying later in the summer.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (14) ◽  
pp. 5813-5829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Santanello ◽  
Joshua Roundy ◽  
Paul A. Dirmeyer

Abstract The coupling of the land with the planetary boundary layer (PBL) on diurnal time scales is critical to regulating the strength of the connection between soil moisture and precipitation. To improve understanding of land–atmosphere (L–A) interactions, recent studies have focused on the development of diagnostics to quantify the strength and accuracy of the land–PBL coupling at the process level. In this paper, the authors apply a suite of local land–atmosphere coupling (LoCo) metrics to modern reanalysis (RA) products and observations during a 17-yr period over the U.S. southern Great Plains. Specifically, a range of diagnostics exploring the links between soil moisture, evaporation, PBL height, temperature, humidity, and precipitation is applied to the summertime monthly mean diurnal cycles of the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), and Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR). Results show that CFSR is the driest and MERRA the wettest of the three RAs in terms of overall surface–PBL coupling. When compared against observations, CFSR has a significant dry bias that impacts all components of the land–PBL system. CFSR and NARR are more similar in terms of PBL dynamics and response to dry and wet extremes, while MERRA is more constrained in terms of evaporation and PBL variability. Each RA has a unique land–PBL coupling that has implications for downstream impacts on the diurnal cycle of PBL evolution, clouds, convection, and precipitation as well as representation of extremes and drought. As a result, caution should be used when treating RAs as truth in terms of their water and energy cycle processes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 122 (21) ◽  
pp. 11,524-11,548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Phillips ◽  
Stephen A. Klein ◽  
Hsi-Yen Ma ◽  
Qi Tang ◽  
Shaocheng Xie ◽  
...  

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (18) ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Klein ◽  
Xianan Jiang ◽  
Jim Boyle ◽  
Sergey Malyshev ◽  
Shaocheng Xie

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