scholarly journals Using Empirical Orthogonal Teleconnections to evaluate interannual rainfall variability over China in the Met Office Unified Model Global Atmosphere 6.0 and Global Coupled 2.0 configurations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Christine Stephan ◽  
Nicholas P. Klingaman ◽  
Pier Luigi Vidale ◽  
Andrew G. Turner ◽  
Marie-Estelle Demory ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Unified Model ◽  
Seasonal Precipitation ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Interannual Rainfall Variability ◽  
The Mean

Abstract. Six climate simulations of the Met Office Unified Model Global Atmosphere 6.0 and Global Coupled 2.0 configurations are evaluated against observations and reanalysis data for their ability to simulate the mean state and year-to-year variability of precipitation over China. To analyze the sensitivity to air-sea coupling and horizontal resolution, atmosphere-only and coupled integrations at atmospheric horizontal resolutions of N96, N216 and N512 (corresponding to ~ 200, 90, and 40 km in the zonal direction at the equator, respectively) are analyzed. The mean and interannual variance of seasonal precipitation are too high in all simulations over China, but improve with finer resolution and coupling. Empirical Orthogonal Teleconnection (EOT) analysis is applied to simulated and observed precipitation to identify spatial patterns of temporally coherent interannual variability in seasonal precipitation. To connect these patterns to large-scale atmospheric and coupled air-sea processes, atmospheric and oceanic fields are regressed onto the corresponding seasonal-mean timeseries. All simulations reproduce the observed leading pattern of interannual rainfall variability in winter, spring and autumn; the leading pattern in summer is present in all but one simulation. However, only in two simulations are the four leading patterns associated with the observed physical mechanisms. Coupled simulations capture more observed patterns of variability and associate more of them with the correct physical mechanism, compared to atmosphere-only simulations at the same resolution. However, finer resolution does not improve the fidelity of these patterns or their associated mechanisms. This shows that evaluating climate models by only geographical distribution of mean precipitation and its interannual variance is insufficient. The EOT analysis adds knowledge about coherent variability and associated mechanisms.

scholarly journals Interannual rainfall variability over China in the MetUM GA6 and GC2 configurations

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1823-1847 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Christine Stephan ◽  
Nicholas P. Klingaman ◽  
Pier Luigi Vidale ◽  
Andrew G. Turner ◽  
Marie-Estelle Demory ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Seasonal Precipitation ◽  
Physical Mechanisms ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Interannual Rainfall Variability ◽  
The Mean

Abstract. Six climate simulations of the Met Office Unified Model Global Atmosphere 6.0 and Global Coupled 2.0 configurations are evaluated against observations and reanalysis data for their ability to simulate the mean state and year-to-year variability of precipitation over China. To analyse the sensitivity to air–sea coupling and horizontal resolution, atmosphere-only and coupled integrations at atmospheric horizontal resolutions of N96, N216 and N512 (corresponding to ∼ 200, 90 and 40 km in the zonal direction at the equator, respectively) are analysed. The mean and interannual variance of seasonal precipitation are too high in all simulations over China but improve with finer resolution and coupling. Empirical orthogonal teleconnection (EOT) analysis is applied to simulated and observed precipitation to identify spatial patterns of temporally coherent interannual variability in seasonal precipitation. To connect these patterns to large-scale atmospheric and coupled air–sea processes, atmospheric and oceanic fields are regressed onto the corresponding seasonal mean time series. All simulations reproduce the observed leading pattern of interannual rainfall variability in winter, spring and autumn; the leading pattern in summer is present in all but one simulation. However, only in two simulations are the four leading patterns associated with the observed physical mechanisms. Coupled simulations capture more observed patterns of variability and associate more of them with the correct physical mechanism, compared to atmosphere-only simulations at the same resolution. However, finer resolution does not improve the fidelity of these patterns or their associated mechanisms. This shows that evaluating climate models by only geographical distribution of mean precipitation and its interannual variance is insufficient. The EOT analysis adds knowledge about coherent variability and associated mechanisms.

Interannual Tasmanian Rainfall Variability Associated with Large-Scale Climate Modes

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (16) ◽  
pp. 4383-4397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khalia J. Hill ◽  
Agus Santoso ◽  
Matthew H. England
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Southern Annular Mode ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Empirical Orthogonal Functions ◽  
Orthogonal Functions ◽  
Climate Modes ◽  
Interannual Rainfall Variability ◽  
East West

Abstract Interannual rainfall variability over Tasmania is examined using observations and reanalysis data. Tasmanian rainfall is dominated by an east–west gradient of mean rainfall and variability. The Pacific–South American mode (PSA), El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the southern annular mode (SAM) each show clear influences on the interannual variability of Tasmanian rainfall. Composites of rainfall during each phase of ENSO and the PSA suggest a notable islandwide influence of these climate modes on Tasmanian rainfall. In contrast, the positive phase of the SAM is associated with drier conditions over the west of the island. The PSA and the SAM project most prominently over the southwest of the island, whereas the ENSO signature is strongest in the north. Empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) of rainfall over Tasmania show a leading mode (explaining 72% of total variance) of coherent islandwide in-phase anomalies with dominant periods of 2 and 5 yr. The second EOF accounts for ∼14% of total variation, characterized by out-of-phase east–west anomalies, which is likely a combination of all three modes. The EOF1 mode can be attributed to ENSO, the PSA, and to a lesser extent the SAM.

scholarly journals A new world natural vegetation map for global change studies

2008 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Lapola ◽  
Marcos D. Oyama ◽  
Carlos A. Nobre ◽  
Gilvan Sampaio
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
New World ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Vegetation Classification ◽  
Natural Vegetation ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Vegetation Map ◽  
Vegetation Maps

We developed a new world natural vegetation map at 1 degree horizontal resolution for use in global climate models. We used the Dorman and Sellers vegetation classification with inclusion of a new biome: tropical seasonal forest, which refers to both deciduous and semi-deciduous tropical forests. SSiB biogeophysical parameters values for this new biome type are presented. Under this new vegetation classification we obtained a consensus map between two global natural vegetation maps widely used in climate studies. We found that these two maps assign different biomes in ca. 1/3 of the continental grid points. To obtain a new global natural vegetation map, non-consensus areas were filled according to regional consensus based on more than 100 regional maps available on the internet. To minimize the risk of using poor quality information, the regional maps were obtained from reliable internet sources, and the filling procedure was based on the consensus among several regional maps obtained from independent sources. The new map was designed to reproduce accurately both the large-scale distribution of the main vegetation types (as it builds on two reliable global natural vegetation maps) and the regional details (as it is based on the consensus of regional maps).

scholarly journals Global Radiative Flux and Cloudiness Variability for the Period 1959–2010 in Belgium: A Comparison between Reanalyses and the Regional Climate Model MAR

Atmosphere ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coraline Wyard ◽  
Sébastien Doutreloup ◽  
Alexandre Belleflamme ◽  
Martin Wild ◽  
Xavier Fettweis
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Cover ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Models ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Radiative Flux ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Historical Trends ◽  
The Mean

The use of regional climate models (RCMs) can partly reduce the biases in global radiative flux (Eg↓) that are found in reanalysis products and global models, as they allow for a finer spatial resolution and a finer parametrisation of surface and atmospheric processes. In this study, we assess the ability of the MAR («Modèle Atmosphérique Régional») RCM to reproduce observed changes in Eg↓, and we investigate the added value of MAR with respect to reanalyses. Simulations were performed at a horizontal resolution of 5 km for the period 1959–2010 by forcing MAR with different reanalysis products: ERA40/ERA-interim, NCEP/NCAR-v1, ERA-20C, and 20CRV2C. Measurements of Eg↓ from the Global Energy Balance Archive (GEBA) and from the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (RMIB), as well as cloud cover observations from Belgocontrol and RMIB, were used for the evaluation of the MAR model and the forcing reanalyses. Results show that MAR enables largely reducing the mean biases that are present in the reanalyses. The trend analysis shows that only MAR forced by ERA40/ERA-interim shows historical trends, which is probably because the ERA40/ERA-interim has a better horizontal resolution and assimilates more observations than the other reanalyses that are used in this study. The results suggest that the solar brightening observed since the 1980s in Belgium has mainly been due to decreasing cloud cover.

scholarly journals Climate SPHINX: evaluating the impact of resolution and stochastic physics parameterisations in climate simulations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Davini ◽  
Jost von Hardenberg ◽  
Susanna Corti ◽  
Hannah M. Christensen ◽  
Stephan Juricke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Rainfall Variability ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Low Resolution ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Advanced Computing ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Stochastic Physics

Abstract. The Climate SPHINX (Stochastic Physics HIgh resolutioN eXperiments) project is a comprehensive set of ensemble simulations aimed at evaluating the sensitivity of present and future climate to model resolution and stochastic parameterisation. The EC-Earth Earth-System Model is used to explore the impact of stochastic physics in a large ensemble of 30-year climate integrations at five different atmospheric horizontal resolutions (from 125 km up to 16 km). The project includes more than 120 simulations in both a historical scenario (1979–2008) and a climate change projection (2039–2068), together with coupled transient runs (1850–2100). A total of 20.4 million core hours have been used, made available from a single year grant from PRACE (the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), and close to 1.5 PBytes of output data have been produced on SuperMUC IBM Petascale System at the Leibniz Supercomputing Center (LRZ) in Garching, Germany. About 140 TBytes of post-processed data are stored on the CINECA supercomputing center archives and are freely accessible to the community thanks to an EUDAT Data Pilot project. This paper presents the technical and scientific setup of the experiments, including the details on the forcing used for the simulations performed, defining the SPHINX v1.0 protocol. In addition, an overview of preliminary results is given: an improvement in the simulation of Euro-Atlantic atmospheric blocking following resolution increases is observed. It is also shown that including stochastic parameterisation in the low resolution runs helps to improve some aspects of the tropical climate – specifically the Madden-Julian Oscillation and the tropical rainfall variability. These findings show the importance of representing the impact of small scale processes on the large scale climate variability either explicitly (with high resolution simulations) or stochastically (in low resolution simulations).

Holocene precipitation changes in northeastern China from CCSM3 transient climate simulations

The Holocene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-72
Author(s):  
Ran Zhang ◽  
Dabang Jiang ◽  
Zhigang Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Asian Summer Monsoon ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Ne China ◽  
Climate System Model ◽  
Orbital Parameters ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Climate Records ◽  
Precipitation Changes

To date, climate records have mainly shown three different trends of Holocene precipitation evolution in northeastern (NE) China, and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we use model results from Holocene transient climate simulations conducted by the Community Climate System Model version 3 to investigate the evolution of precipitation in NE China and the associated mechanisms. The model results indicate that precipitation changes within NE China show obvious spatial discrepancies. In particular, the annual precipitation maximum occurs in the early Holocene for the western subregion, while it occurs in the mid-late Holocene for the eastern subregion. These results show two different trends of Holocene precipitation within NE China capturing the large-scale precipitation changes appearing in climate records. These spatial features are closely related to the gradual weakening of the East Asian summer monsoon during the Holocene and are mainly attributed to the combined effects of orbital forcing and the ice sheet. Changes in orbital parameters play a major role in the decreased precipitation in the western subregion, while changes in the ice sheet contribute more to the increased precipitation in the eastern subregion. The observed model-data discrepancy partly relates to the low horizontal resolution employed and the physical processes and parameterizations of the model used.

scholarly journals Climate Model Biases in the Width of the Tropical Belt

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 1935-1954 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Davis ◽  
Thomas Birner
Keyword(s):  
Seasonal Cycle ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Hadley Cell ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Cell Width ◽  
Mean Width ◽  
The Mean

Abstract Earth’s arid subtropics are situated at the edges of the tropical belt, which encircles the planet along the equator and covers half of its surface area. The climate of the tropical belt is strongly influenced by the Hadley cells, with their subsidence and easterly trade winds both sustaining the aridity at the belt’s edges. The understanding of Earth’s past, present, and future climates is contingent on understanding the dynamics influencing this region. An important but unanswered question is how realistically climate models reproduce the mean state of the tropical belt. This study augments the existing literature by examining the mean width and seasonality of the tropical belt in climate models from phase 5 of CMIP (CMIP5) and experiments from the second phase of the Chemistry–Climate Model Validation (CCMVal-2) activity of the Stratospheric Processes and Their Role in Climate (SPARC) project. While the models overall reproduce the structure of the tropical belt width’s seasonal cycle, they underestimate its amplitude and cannot consistently reproduce the seasonal cycle lag between the Northern Hemisphere Hadley cell edge and subtropical jet latitudes found in observations. Additionally, up to 50% of the intermodel variation in mean tropical belt width can be attributed to model horizontal resolution, with finer resolution leading to a narrower tropical belt. Finer resolution is associated with an equatorward shift and intensification of subtropical eddy momentum flux convergence, which via the Coriolis torque explains essentially all of the grid-size bias and a large fraction of the total intermodel variation in Hadley cell width.

scholarly journals A Global Atmospheric Analysis Dataset Downscaled from the NCEP–DOE Reanalysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (7) ◽  
pp. 2527-2534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jung-Eun Kim ◽  
Song-You Hong
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Analysis Data ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
Quality Analysis ◽  
Resolution Model ◽  
Decadal Trend ◽  
Environmental Prediction

Abstract A global atmospheric analysis dataset is constructed via a spectral nudging technique. The 6-hourly National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)–Department of Energy (DOE) reanalysis from January 1979 to February 2011 is utilized to force large-scale information, whereas a higher-resolution structure is resolved by a global model with improved physics. The horizontal resolution of the downscaled data is about 100 km, twice that of the NCEP–DOE reanalysis. A comparison of the 31-yr downscaled data with reanalysis data and observations reveals that the downscaled precipitation climatology is improved by correcting inherent biases in the lower-resolution reanalysis, and large-scale patterns are preserved. In addition, it is found that global downscaling is an efficient way to generate high-quality analysis data due to the use of a higher-resolution model with improved physics. The uniqueness of the obtained data lies in the fact that an undesirable decadal trend in the analysis due to a change in the amount of observations used in reanalysis is avoided. As such, a downscaled dataset may be used to investigate changes in the hydrological cycle and related mechanisms.

The moisture budget of tropical cyclones: large scale environmental constraints and sensitivity to model horizontal resolution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoit Vanniere ◽  
Malcolm Roberts ◽  
Pier Luigi Vidale ◽  
Kevin Hodges ◽  
Marie-Estelle Demory
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Potential Temperature ◽  
Large Change ◽  
Moisture Flux ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Moisture Budget ◽  
High Resolution Models ◽  
The Impact

<p>Previous studies have shown that, the number, intensity and structure of simulated tropical cyclones (TC) in climate models get closer to the observations as the horizontal resolution is increased. However, the sensitivity of tropical cyclone precipitation and moisture budget to changes in resolution has received less attention. In this study, we use the five-model ensemble from project PRIMAVERA/HighResMIP to investigate the systematic changes associated with the water budget of tropical cyclones in a range of horizontal resolutions from 1º to 0.25º. Our results show that despite a large change in the distribution of TC intensity with resolution, the distribution of precipitation per TC does not change significantly. This result is explained by the large scale balance which characterises the moisture budget of TCs, i.e. radii of ~15º a scale that low and high resolution models represent equally well. The wind profile is found to converge between low and high resolutions for radii > 5º, resulting in a moisture flux convergence into the TC with similar magnitude at low and high resolutions. In contrast to precipitation per TC, the larger TC intensity at higher resolution is explained by the larger surface latent heat flux near the center of the storm, which leads to an increase in equivalent potential temperature and warmer core anomalies, despite representing a negligible contribution to the moisture budget. We discuss the complication arising from the choice of the tracking algorithm when assessing the impact of model resolution and the implications of such a constraint on the TC moisture budget in the context of climate change.</p>

Drivers of biases in the extratropical storm tracks in CMIP6

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Priestley ◽  
Duncan Ackerley ◽  
Jennifer Catto ◽  
Kevin Hodges ◽  
Ruth McDonald ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Storm Tracks ◽  
Extratropical Cyclones ◽  
Ocean Coupling ◽  
Coupled Climate Models ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Impact

<p>Extratropical cyclones are the leading driver of the day-to-day weather variability and wintertime losses for Europe. In the latest generation of coupled climate models, CMIP6, it is hoped that with improved modelling capabilities come improvements in the structure of the storm track and the associated cyclones. Using an objective cyclone identification and tracking algorithm the mean state of the storm tracks in the CMIP6 models is assessed as well as the representation of explosively deepening cyclones. Any developments and improvements since the previous generation of models in CMIP5 are discussed, with focus on the impact of model resolution on storm track representation. Furthermore, large-scale drivers of any biases are investigated, with particular focus on the role of atmosphere-ocean coupling via associated AMIP simulations and also the influence of large-scale dynamical and thermodynamical features.</p>

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