scholarly journals Cloud Vertical Distribution across Warm and Cold Fronts in CloudSat–CALIPSO Data and a General Circulation Model

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 3397-3415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine M. Naud ◽  
Anthony D. Del Genio ◽  
Mike Bauer ◽  
William Kovari
Keyword(s):  
Relative Humidity ◽  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
General Circulation Model ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Cloud Cover ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Cold Fronts

Abstract Cloud vertical distributions across extratropical warm and cold fronts are obtained using two consecutive winters of CloudSat–Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) observations and National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis atmospheric state parameters over the Northern and Southern Hemisphere oceans (30°–70°N/S) between November 2006 and September 2008. These distributions generally resemble those from the original model introduced by the Bergen School in the 1920s, with the following exceptions: 1) substantial low cloudiness, which is present behind and ahead of the warm and cold fronts; 2) ubiquitous high cloudiness, some of it very thin, throughout the warm-frontal region; and 3) upright convective cloudiness near and behind some warm fronts. One winter of GISS general circulation model simulations of Northern and Southern Hemisphere warm and cold fronts at 2° × 2.5° × 32 levels resolution gives similar cloud distributions but with much lower cloud fraction, a shallower depth of cloudiness, and a shorter extent of tilted warm-frontal cloud cover on the cold air side of the surface frontal position. A close examination of the relationship between the cloudiness and relative humidity fields indicates that water vapor is not lifted enough in modeled midlatitude cyclones and this is related to weak vertical velocities in the model. The model also produces too little cloudiness for a given value of vertical velocity or relative humidity. For global climate models run at scales coarser than tens of kilometers, the authors suggest that the current underestimate of modeled cloud cover in the storm track regions, and in particular the 50°–60°S band of the Southern Oceans, could be reduced with the implementation of a slantwise convection parameterization.

The impact of biases in the tropical South Pacific and near the Agulhaus Current on the large-scale Southern Hemisphere circulation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaim Garfinkel ◽  
Ian White ◽  
Edwin Gerber ◽  
Martin Jucker
Keyword(s):  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
General Circulation Model ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
Cmip5 Models ◽  
Stationary Waves ◽  
Model Bias ◽  
Intermediate Complexity

<p>A common model bias in comprehensive climate models used in climate assessements such as the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project is a double inter-tropical convergence, with excessive precipitation in the tropical eastern South Pacific. In addition, the current generation of climate models cannot adequately resolve the dynamics of the Agulhas Current, and in particular the relative fraction of the Current that leaks into the Atlantic as opposed to retroflecting back into the Indian Ocean. The intermodel spread in the magnitude of the double ITCZ bias is   significantly correlated with the strength and phasing of   SH stationary waves in the CMIP archive, with models with a smaller bias generally showing more realistic stationary waves. An intermediate complexity moist General Circulation Model is used to demonstrate the causality of this connection: by fluxing heat out of  the tropical South Pacific Ocean, we can capture the  responses seen in CMIP5 models.  Finally, the same intermediate complexity moist General Circulation Model is used to demonstrate that an overly diffuse Agulhas leads to an equatorward shift of the Southern Hemisphere jet by more than  3degrees, and indeed an overly equatorward Southern Hemisphere jet is a common model bias in most CMIP5 models.</p>

scholarly journals Simulating the mid-Pliocene climate with the MIROC general circulation model: experimental design and initial results

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1035-1049 ◽  
Author(s):  
W.-L. Chan ◽  
A. Abe-Ouchi ◽  
R. Ohgaito
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Design ◽  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
General Circulation Model ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Model Intercomparison ◽  
Initial Results

Abstract. Recently, PlioMIP (Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project) was established to assess the ability of various climate models to simulate the mid-Pliocene warm period (mPWP), 3.3–3.0 million years ago. We use MIROC4m, a fully coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM), and its atmospheric component alone to simulate the mPWP, utilizing up-to-date data sets designated in PlioMIP as boundary conditions and adhering to the protocols outlined. In this paper, a brief description of the model is given, followed by an explanation of the experimental design and implementation of the boundary conditions, such as topography and sea surface temperature. Initial results show increases of approximately 10°C in the zonal mean surface air temperature at high latitudes accompanied by a decrease in the equator-to-pole temperature gradient. Temperatures in the tropical regions increase more in the AOGCM. However, warming of the AOGCM sea surface in parts of the northern North Atlantic Ocean and Nordic Seas is less than that suggested by proxy data. An investigation of the model-data discrepancies and further model intercomparison studies can lead to a better understanding of the mid-Pliocene climate and of its role in assessing future climate change.

scholarly journals The Steady-State Atmospheric Circulation Response to Climate Change–like Thermal Forcings in a Simple General Circulation Model

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (13) ◽  
pp. 3474-3496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy H. Butler ◽  
David W. J. Thompson ◽  
Ross Heikes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Steady State ◽  
General Circulation Model ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Storm Tracks ◽  
Polar Surface ◽  
Tropical Troposphere ◽  
Polar Stratosphere

Abstract The steady-state extratropical atmospheric response to thermal forcing is investigated in a simple atmospheric general circulation model. The thermal forcings qualitatively mimic three key aspects of anthropogenic climate change: warming in the tropical troposphere, cooling in the polar stratosphere, and warming at the polar surface. The principal novel findings are the following: 1) Warming in the tropical troposphere drives two robust responses in the model extratropical circulation: poleward shifts in the extratropical tropospheric storm tracks and a weakened stratospheric Brewer–Dobson circulation. The former result suggests heating in the tropical troposphere plays a fundamental role in the poleward contraction of the storm tracks found in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)-class climate change simulations; the latter result is in the opposite sense of the trends in the Brewer–Dobson circulation found in most previous climate change experiments. 2) Cooling in the polar stratosphere also drives a poleward shift in the extratropical storm tracks. The tropospheric response is largely consistent with that found in previous studies, but it is shown to be very sensitive to the level and depth of the forcing. In the stratosphere, the Brewer–Dobson circulation weakens at midlatitudes, but it strengthens at high latitudes because of anomalously poleward heat fluxes on the flank of the polar vortex. 3) Warming at the polar surface drives an equatorward shift of the storm tracks. The storm-track response to polar warming is in the opposite sense of the response to tropical tropospheric heating; hence large warming over the Arctic may act to attenuate the response of the Northern Hemisphere storm track to tropical heating. 4) The signs of the tropospheric and stratospheric responses to all thermal forcings considered here are robust to seasonal changes in the basic state, but the amplitude and details of the responses exhibit noticeable differences between equinoctial and wintertime conditions. Additionally, the responses exhibit marked nonlinearity in the sense that the response to multiple thermal forcings applied simultaneously is quantitatively different from the sum of the responses to the same forcings applied independently. Thus the response of the model to a given thermal forcing is demonstrably dependent on the other thermal forcings applied to the model.

scholarly journals Effects of Convective Gravity Wave Drag in the Southern Hemisphere Winter Stratosphere

2013 ◽  
Vol 70 (7) ◽  
pp. 2120-2136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyun-Joo Choi ◽  
Hye-Yeong Chun
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Wave ◽  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Wave Drag ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Systematic Biases ◽  
Hemisphere Winter

Abstract The excessively strong polar jet and cold pole in the Southern Hemisphere winter stratosphere are systematic biases in most global climate models and are related to underestimated wave drag in the winter extratropical stratosphere—namely, missing gravity wave drag (GWD). Cumulus convection is strong in the winter extratropics in association with storm-track regions; thus, convective GWD could be one of the missing GWDs in models that do not adopt source-based nonorographic GWD parameterizations. In this study, the authors use the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) and show that the zonal-mean wind and temperature biases in the Southern Hemisphere winter stratosphere of the model are significantly alleviated by including convective GWD (GWDC) parameterizations. The reduction in the wind biases is due to enhanced wave drag in the winter extratropical stratosphere, which is caused directly by the additional GWDC and indirectly by the increased existing nonorographic GWD and resolved wave drag in response to the GWDC. The cold temperature biases are alleviated by increased downwelling in the winter polar stratosphere, which stems from an increased poleward motion due to enhanced wave drag in the winter extratropical stratosphere. A comparison between two simulations separately using the ray-based and columnar GWDC parameterizations shows that the polar night jet with a ray-based GWDC parameterization is much more realistic than that with a columnar GWDC parameterization.

Simulation of Present-Day and Twenty-First-Century Energy Budgets of the Southern Oceans

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 440-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin E. Trenberth ◽  
John T. Fasullo
Keyword(s):  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
Cloud Cover ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Storm Tracks ◽  
Energy Budgets ◽  
Poleward Shift ◽  
Projected Changes

Abstract The energy budget of the modern-day Southern Hemisphere is poorly simulated in both state-of-the-art reanalyses and coupled global climate models. The ocean-dominated Southern Hemisphere has low surface reflectivity and therefore its albedo is particularly sensitive to cloud cover. In modern-day climates, mainly because of systematic deficiencies in cloud and albedo at mid- and high latitudes, too much solar radiation enters the ocean. Along with too little radiation absorbed at lower latitudes because of clouds that are too bright, unrealistically weak poleward transports of energy by both the ocean and atmosphere are generally simulated in the Southern Hemisphere. This implies too little baroclinic eddy development and deficient activity in storm tracks. However, projections into the future by coupled climate models indicate that the Southern Ocean features a robust and unique increase in albedo, related to clouds, in association with an intensification and poleward shift in storm tracks that is not observed at any other latitude. Such an increase in cloud may be untenable in nature, as it is likely precluded by the present-day ubiquitous cloud cover that models fail to capture. There is also a remarkably strong relationship between the projected changes in clouds and the simulated current-day cloud errors. The model equilibrium climate sensitivity is also significantly negatively correlated with the Southern Hemisphere energy errors, and only the more sensitive models are in the range of observations. As a result, questions loom large about how the Southern Hemisphere will actually change as global warming progresses, and a better simulation of the modern-day climate is an essential first step.

scholarly journals Improved simulation of clouds over the Southern Ocean in a General Circulation Model

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vidya Varma ◽  
Olaf Morgenstern ◽  
Paul Field ◽  
Kalli Furtado ◽  
Jonny Williams ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Ocean ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Supercooled Liquid ◽  
Short Wave ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Ice Crystals ◽  
Wave Radiation ◽  
Short Wave Radiation

Abstract. The present generation of global climate models is characterized by insufficient reflection of short-wave radiation over the Southern Ocean due to a misrepresentation of clouds. This is a significant concern as it leads to excessive heating of the ocean surface, sea surface temperature biases, and subsequent problems with atmospheric dynamics. In this study we modify cloud micro-physics in a recent version of the Met Office's Unified Model and show that choosing a more realistic value for the shape parameter of atmospheric ice-crystals, in better agreement with theory and observations, benefits the simulation of short-wave radiation. In the model, for calculating the growth rate of ice crystals through deposition, the default assumption is that all ice particles are spherical in shape. We modify this assumption to effectively allow for oblique shapes or aggregates of ice crystals. Along with modified ice nucleation temperatures, we achieve a reduction in the annual-mean short-wave cloud radiative effect over the Southern Ocean by up to 4 W/m2, and seasonally much larger reductions. By slowing the growth of the ice phase, the model simulates substantially more supercooled liquid cloud. We hypothesize that such abundant supercooled liquid cloud is the result of a paucity of ice nucleating particles in this part of the atmosphere.

scholarly journals Development of the global atmospheric chemistry general circulation model BCC-GEOS-Chem v1.0: model description and evaluation

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 3817-3838
Author(s):  
Xiao Lu ◽  
Lin Zhang ◽  
Tongwen Wu ◽  
Michael S. Long ◽  
Jun Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation Model ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Tropospheric Ozone ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Stratospheric Ozone ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Satellite Observations ◽  
Model Description

Abstract. Chemistry plays an indispensable role in investigations of the atmosphere; however, many climate models either ignore or greatly simplify atmospheric chemistry, limiting both their accuracy and their scope. We present the development and evaluation of the online global atmospheric chemical model BCC-GEOS-Chem v1.0, coupling the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model (CTM) as an atmospheric chemistry component in the Beijing Climate Center atmospheric general circulation model (BCC-AGCM). The GEOS-Chem atmospheric chemistry component includes detailed tropospheric HOx–NOx–volatile organic compounds–ozone–bromine–aerosol chemistry and online dry and wet deposition schemes. We then demonstrate the new capabilities of BCC-GEOS-Chem v1.0 relative to the base BCC-AGCM model through a 3-year (2012–2014) simulation with anthropogenic emissions from the Community Emissions Data System (CEDS) used in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). The model captures well the spatial distributions and seasonal variations in tropospheric ozone, with seasonal mean biases of 0.4–2.2 ppbv at 700–400 hPa compared to satellite observations and within 10 ppbv at the surface to 500 hPa compared to global ozonesonde observations. The model has larger high-ozone biases over the tropics which we attribute to an overestimate of ozone chemical production. It underestimates ozone in the upper troposphere which is likely due either to the use of a simplified stratospheric ozone scheme or to biases in estimated stratosphere–troposphere exchange dynamics. The model diagnoses the global tropospheric ozone burden, OH concentration, and methane chemical lifetime to be 336 Tg, 1.16×106 molecule cm−3, and 8.3 years, respectively, which is consistent with recent multimodel assessments. The spatiotemporal distributions of NO2, CO, SO2, CH2O, and aerosol optical depth are generally in agreement with satellite observations. The development of BCC-GEOS-Chem v1.0 represents an important step for the development of fully coupled earth system models (ESMs) in China.

scholarly journals Quantitative Sensitivity Analysis of Physical Parameterizations for Cases of Deep Convection in the NASA GEOS-5

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 455-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek J. Posselt ◽  
Bruce Fryxell ◽  
Andrea Molod ◽  
Brian Williams
Keyword(s):  
General Circulation ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Deep Convection ◽  
Input Parameter ◽  
Circulation Model ◽  
Parameter Sensitivity ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Simulation Code

Abstract Parameterization of processes that occur on length scales too small to resolve on a computational grid is a major source of uncertainty in global climate models. This study investigates the relative importance of a number of parameters used in the Goddard Earth Observing System Model, version 5 (GEOS-5), atmospheric general circulation model, focusing on cloud, convection, and boundary layer parameterizations. Latin hypercube sampling is used to generate a few hundred sets of 19 candidate physics parameters, which are subsequently used to generate ensembles of single-column model realizations of cloud content, precipitation, and radiative fluxes for four different field campaigns. A Gaussian process model is then used to create a computationally inexpensive emulator for the simulation code that can be used to determine a measure of relative parameter sensitivity by sampling the response surface for a very large number of input parameter sets. Parameter sensitivities are computed for different geographic locations and seasons to determine whether the intrinsic sensitivity of the model parameterizations changes with season and location. The results indicate the same subset of parameters collectively control the model output across all experiments, independent of changes in the environment. These are the threshold relative humidity for cloud formation, the ice fall speeds, convective and large-scale autoconversion, deep convection relaxation time scale, maximum convective updraft diameter, and minimum ice effective radius. However, there are differences in the degree of parameter sensitivity between continental and tropical convective cases, as well as systematic changes in the degree of parameter influence and parameter–parameter interaction.

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