scholarly journals Specification of External Forcing for Regional Model Integrations

2009 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 1409-1421 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Yoshimura ◽  
M. Kanamitsu

Abstract The effect of vertical and time interpolations of external forcings on the accuracy of regional simulations is examined. Two different treatments of the forcings, one with conventional lateral boundary nudging and the other with spectral nudging, are studied. The main result is that the accuracy of the regional simulation increases very slowly as the number of forcing field levels increase when no spectral nudging is used. Thus, for better simulation, it is desirable to have as many forcing levels as possible. By contrast, spectral nudging improves the regional model simulation when reasonably large numbers of forcing field levels, at least up to nine levels, are given. The accuracy worsens drastically when the number of forcing levels is reduced to less than nine. To improve the simulation, in particular when the forcing field is given at a coarse vertical resolution and at lower time frequency, an incremental interpolation method is introduced. The incremental interpolation in the vertical direction significantly improves the regional simulation at all numbers of forcing field levels. The improvement is largest at very low vertical resolution. Incremental interpolation in time also works excellently, allowing the use of daily output for reasonably accurate downscaling. By using a combination of spectral nudging and incremental interpolation, it is possible to make a reasonably accurate downscaling from the forcing given daily at three–five levels in the vertical direction with low overhead. This considerably reduces the amount of data currently believed to be required to downscale global model integrations.

2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 1293-1314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard M. Druyan ◽  
Matthew Fulakeza ◽  
Patrick Lonergan

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1589-1634 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. B. Considine ◽  
J. A. Logan ◽  
M. A. Olsen

Abstract. The NASA Global Modeling Initiative has developed a combined stratosphere/troposphere chemistry and transport model which fully represents the processes governing atmospheric composition near the tropopause. We evaluate model ozone distributions near the tropopause, using two high vertical resolution monthly mean ozone profile climatologies constructed with ozonesonde data, one by averaging on pressure levels and the other relative to the thermal tropopause. Model ozone is high-biased at the SH tropical and NH midlatitude tropopause by ~45% in a 4° latitude × 5° longitude model simulation. Increasing the resolution to 2°×2.5&amp;deg increases the NH tropopause high bias to ~60%, but decreases the tropical tropopause bias to ~30%, an effect of a better-resolved residual circulation. The tropopause ozone biases appear not to be due to an overly vigorous residual circulation or excessive stratosphere/troposphere exchange, but are more likely due to insufficient vertical resolution or excessive vertical diffusion near the tropopause. In the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, model/measurement intercomparisons are strongly affected by the averaging technique. NH and tropical mean model lower stratospheric biases are <20%. In the upper troposphere, the 2°×2.5&amp;deg simulation exhibits mean high biases of ~20% and~35% during April in the tropics and NH midlatitudes, respectively, compared to the pressure-averaged climatology. However, relative-to-tropopause averaging produces upper troposphere high biases of ~30% and 70% in the tropics and NH midlatitudes. This is because relative-to-tropopause averaging better preserves large cross-tropopause O3 gradients, which are seen in the daily sonde data, but not in daily model profiles. The relative annual cycle of ozone near the tropopause is reproduced very well in the model Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes. In the tropics, the model amplitude of the near-tropopause annual cycle is weak. This is likely due to the annual amplitude of mean vertical upwelling near the tropopause, which analysis suggests is ~30% weaker than in the real atmosphere.


2003 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 2219-2232 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Tomassetti ◽  
F. Giorgi ◽  
M. Verdecchia ◽  
G. Visconti

Abstract. The drainage of the Fucino Lake of central Italy was completed in 1873, and this possibly caused significant climatic changes over the Fucino basin. In this paper we discuss a set of short-term triple-nested regional model simulations of the meteorological effects of the Fucino Lake on the surrounding region. We find that the model simulates realistic lake-breeze circulations and their response to background winds. The simulations indicate that the lake affects the temperature of the surrounding basin in all seasons and precipitation in the cold season, when cyclonic perturbations move across the region. Some effects of the lake also extend over areas quite far from the Fucino basin. Our results support the hypothesis that the drainage of the lake might have significantly affected the climate of the lake basin. However, longer simulations and further development in some aspects of the model are needed, in order to provide a more statistically robust evaluation of the simulated lake-effects.Key words. Hydrology (anthropogenic effects) – Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (climatology; mesoscale meteorology)


2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Braun ◽  
Daniel Caya ◽  
Anne Frigon ◽  
Michel Slivitzky

Abstract The effect of a regional climate model’s (RCM’s) internal variability (IV) on climate statistics of annual series of hydrological variables is investigated at the scale of 21 eastern Canada watersheds in Quebec and Labrador. The analysis is carried out on 30-yr pairs of simulations (twins), performed with the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) for present (reanalysis and global climate model driven) and future (global climate model driven) climates. The twins differ only by the starting date of the regional simulation—a standard procedure used to trigger internal variability in RCMs. Two different domain sizes are considered: one comparable to domains used for RCM simulations over Europe and the other comparable to domains used for North America. Results for the larger North American domain indicate that mean relative differences between twin pairs of 30-yr climates reach ±5% when spectral nudging is used. Larger differences are found for extreme annual events, reaching about ±10% for 10% and 90% quantiles (Q10 and Q90). IV is smaller by about one order of magnitude in the smaller domain. Internal variability is unaffected by the period (past versus future climate) and by the type of driving data (reanalysis versus global climate model simulation) but shows a dependence on watershed size. When spectral nudging is deactivated in the large domain, the relative difference between pairs of 30-yr climate means almost doubles and approaches the magnitude of a global climate model’s internal variability. This IV at the level of the natural climate variability has a profound impact on the interpretation, analysis, and validation of RCM simulations over large domains.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 2365-2385 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. B. Considine ◽  
J. A. Logan ◽  
M. A. Olsen

Abstract. The NASA Global Modeling Initiative has developed a combined stratosphere/troposphere chemistry and transport model which fully represents the processes governing atmospheric composition near the tropopause. We evaluate model ozone distributions near the tropopause, using two high vertical resolution monthly mean ozone profile climatologies constructed with ozonesonde data, one by averaging on pressure levels and the other relative to the thermal tropopause. At the tropopause, model ozone is high-biased in the SH tropics and NH midlatitudes by ~45% in a 4° latitude ×5° longitude model simulation. Doubling the resolution to 2°×2.5° increases the NH high bias to ~60%, and reduces the tropical bias to ~30%, apparently due to decreased horizontal transport between the tropics and extratropics in the higher-resolution simulation. These ozone biases do not appear to be due to an overly vigorous residual circulation, insufficient convection, or excessive stratosphere/troposphere exchange, and so may be due to insufficient vertical resolution or excessive vertical diffusion near the tropopause. In the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, model/measurement intercomparisons are strongly affected by the averaging technique. Compared to the pressure-averaged climatology, NH and tropical mean model lower stratospheric biases are >20%. In the upper troposphere, the 2°×2.5° simulation shows mean high biases of ~20% and ~35% during April in the tropics and NH midlatitudes, respectively. This apparently good model/measurement agreement degrades when relative-to-tropopause averages are considered, with upper troposphere high biases of ~30% and 70% in the tropics and NH midlatitudes. This occurs because relative-to-tropopause averaging better preserves the larger cross-tropopause O3 gradients which are seen in the daily sonde data, but not in daily model profiles. Relative-to-tropopause averages therefore more accurately reveal model/measurement discrepancies. The relative annual cycle of ozone near the tropopause is reproduced very well in the model Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes. In the tropics, the model amplitude of the near-tropopause annual cycle is weak. This is likely due to the annual amplitude of mean vertical upwelling near the tropopause, which analysis suggests is ~30% weaker than in the real atmosphere.


2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (03) ◽  
pp. 395-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICARDO DAVID VALDEZ-CEPEDA ◽  
OLIVIA DELGADILLO-RUIZ ◽  
RAFAEL MAGALLANES-QUINTANAR ◽  
GERARDO MIRAMONTES-de LEÓN ◽  
JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA-HERNÁNDEZ ◽  
...  

In crop science, tools of non-linear dynamics, fractals, chaos, intermittency and self-organized criticality may be employed and applied to the analysis of spatial variability and temporal behavior of agro-meteorological variables, soil properties, plant attributes, commercial yields, and prices of the agricultural products in order to gain knowledge about underlying complex processes. A search on the occurrence of particular scaling laws in Mexico's normalized yearly mean grain yield anomaly series of maize (Zea mays L.), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and rice (Oriza sativa L.), using a variography approach is reported in this work. Additionally, power spectrum determination, time-frequency analysis, and estimation of Lyapunov exponent were performed for each profile in order to obtain useful information on the frequency contents and signs at which important frequencies occur as well as to determine their sensitivity to initial conditions. Fractal analysis gives us the order maize < wheat < rice < beans of sensitivity to external forcings, which was the same as that obtained through the Lyapunov exponent values. Results confirm that the final outputs (crop yields) in agricultural systems are affected by the magnetic and sunspot cycles of the Sun, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the quasi-biannual oscillation, and possibly by the so-called heliospheric mid-term-quasi-periodicities, which act on different time (or spatial and spatial-time) scales. In particular, the maize normalized year anomaly series is clearly correlated with March, April, May and June series of the ENSO index.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5707-5723
Author(s):  
Mathieu Lachatre ◽  
Sylvain Mailler ◽  
Laurent Menut ◽  
Solène Turquety ◽  
Pasquale Sellitto ◽  
...  

Abstract. Excessive numerical diffusion is one of the major limitations in the representation of long-range transport by chemistry transport models. In the present study, we focus on excessive diffusion in the vertical direction, which has been shown to be a major issue, and we explore three possible ways of addressing this problem: increasing the vertical resolution, using an advection scheme with anti-diffusive properties and more accurately representing the vertical wind. This study was carried out using the CHIMERE chemistry transport model for the 18 March 2012 eruption of Mount Etna, which released about 3 kt of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere in a plume that was observed by satellite instruments (the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer instrument, IASI, and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument, OMI) for several days. The change from the classical Van Leer (1977) scheme to the Després and Lagoutière (1999) anti-diffusive scheme in the vertical direction was shown to provide the largest improvement to model outputs in terms of preserving the thin plume emitted by the volcano. To a lesser extent, the improved representation of the vertical wind field was also shown to reduce plume dispersion. Both of these changes helped to reduce vertical diffusion in the model as much as a brute-force approach (increasing vertical resolution).


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