scholarly journals Diagnosis of the summertime warm and dry bias over the U.S. Southern Great Plains in the GFDL climate model using a weather forecasting approach

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (18) ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Klein ◽  
Xianan Jiang ◽  
Jim Boyle ◽  
Sergey Malyshev ◽  
Shaocheng Xie
2017 ◽  
Vol 122 (21) ◽  
pp. 11,524-11,548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Phillips ◽  
Stephen A. Klein ◽  
Hsi-Yen Ma ◽  
Qi Tang ◽  
Shaocheng Xie ◽  
...  

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.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (16) ◽  
pp. 5471-5493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacola A. Roman ◽  
Robert O. Knuteson ◽  
Steven A. Ackerman ◽  
David C. Tobin ◽  
Henry E. Revercomb

Abstract Precipitable water vapor (PWV) observations from the National Center of Atmospheric Research (NCAR) SuomiNet networks of ground-based global positioning system (GPS) receivers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Profiler Network (NPN) are used in the regional assessment of global climate models. Study regions in the U.S. Great Plains and Midwest highlight the differences among global climate model output from the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A2 scenario in their seasonal representation of column water vapor and the vertical distribution of moisture. In particular, the Community Climate System model, version 3 (CCSM3) is shown to exhibit a dry bias of over 30% in the summertime water vapor column, while the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Model E20 (GISS E20) agrees well with PWV observations. A detailed assessment of vertical profiles of temperature, relative humidity, and specific humidity confirm that only GISS E20 was able to represent the summertime specific humidity profile in the atmospheric boundary layer (<3%) and thus the correct total column water vapor. All models show good agreement in the winter season for the region. Regional trends using station-elevation-corrected GPS PWV data from two complimentary networks are found to be consistent with null trends predicted in the AR4 A2 scenario model output for the period 2000–09. The time to detect (TTD) a 0.05 mm yr−1 PWV trend, as predicted in the A2 scenario for the period 2000–2100, is shown to be 25–30 yr with 95% confidence in the Oklahoma–Kansas region.


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.


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