Abstract

In comprehensive and idealized general circulation models, hemispherically asymmetric forcings lead to shifts in the latitude of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). Prior studies using comprehensive GCMs (with complicated parameterizations of radiation, clouds, and convection) suggest that the water vapor feedback tends to amplify the movement of the ITCZ in response to a given hemispherically asymmetric forcing, but this effect has yet to be elucidated in isolation. This study uses an idealized moist model, coupled to a full radiative transfer code, but without clouds, to examine the role of the water vapor feedback in a targeted manner.

In experiments with interactive water vapor and radiation, the ITCZ latitude shifts roughly twice as much off the equator as in cases with the water vapor field seen by the radiation code prescribed to a static hemisperically symmetric control distribution. Using energy flux equator theory for the latitude of the ITCZ, the amplification of the ITCZ shift is attributed primarily to the longwave water vapor absorption associated with the movement of the ITCZ into the warmer hemisphere, further increasing the net column heating asymmetry. Local amplification of the imposed forcing by the shortwave water vapor feedback plays a secondary role. Experiments varying the convective relaxation time, an important parameter in the convection scheme used in the idealized moist model, yield qualitatively similar results, suggesting some degree of robustness to the model physics; however, the sensitivity experiments do not preclude that more extreme modifications to the convection scheme could lead to qualitatively different behavior.

Abstract

Observations from a 16-month field study using two vertically pointing radars and a disdrometer at Wallops Island are analyzed to examine the consistency of the multi-instrument observations with respect to reflectivity and Z–R relations. The vertically pointing radars were operated at S and K bands and had a very good agreement in reflectivity at a gate centered on 175 and 177 m above ground level over a variety of storms. This agreement occurred even though the sampling volumes were of different size and even though the S band measured the reflectivity factor directly, whereas the K-band radar deduced it from attenuated K-band measurements. Indeed, the radar agreement in reflectivity at the collocated range gates was superior to that between the disdrometer and either radar. This is attributed in large part to the spatial separation of the disdrometer and radar sample volumes, although the lesser agreement observed in a prior collocated disdrometer–disdrometer comparison suggests the larger size of the radar sample volumes as well as the better overlap also play a role. Vertical variations in the observations were examined with the aid of the two radar profilers. As expected, the agreement between the disdrometer reflectivity and the reflectivity seen in the vertically pointing radars decreased with height. The effect of these vertical variations on determinations of Z–R relation coefficients was then examined, using a number of different methods for finding the best-fitting coefficients. The coefficient of the Z–R relation derived from paired disdrometer rain rate and radar reflectivity decreased with height, while the exponent of the Z–R relation increased with height. The coefficient and exponent of the Z–R relations also showed sensitivity to the choice of derivation method [linear and nonlinear least squares, fixed exponent, minimizing the root-mean-square difference (RMSD), and probability matching]. The influence of the time lag between the radar and disdrometer measurements was explored by examining the RMSD in reflectivity for paired measurements between 0- and 4-min lag. The no-lag conditions had the lowest RMSD up to 400 m, while 1-min lag gave the lowest RMSD at higher heights. The coefficient and exponent of the Z–R relations, on the other hand, did not have a significant change between no-lag- and 1-min-lag-based pairs.

Abstract

This study evaluates 24-h forecasts of dryline position from an experimental 4-km grid-spacing version of the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) run daily at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), as well as the 12-km grid-spacing North America Mesoscale Model (NAM) run operationally by the Environmental Modeling Center of NCEP. For both models, 0000 UTC initializations are examined, and for verification 0000 UTC Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) analyses are used. For the period 1 April–30 June 2007–11, 116 cases containing drylines in all three datasets were identified using a manual procedure that considered specific humidity gradient magnitude, temperature, and 10-m wind. For the 24-h NAM forecasts, no systematic east–west dryline placement errors were found, and the majority of the east–west errors fell within the range ±0.5° longitude. The lack of a systematic bias was generally present across all subgroups of cases categorized according to month, weather pattern, and year. In contrast, a systematic eastward bias was found in 24-h NSSL-WRF forecasts, which was consistent across all subgroups of cases. The eastward biases seemed to be largest for the subgroups that favored “active” drylines (i.e., those associated with a progressive synoptic-scale weather system) as opposed to “quiescent” drylines that tend to be present with weaker tropospheric flow and have eastward movement dominated by vertical mixing processes in the boundary layer.

Abstract

Many factors, both mesoscale and larger scale, often come together in order for a particular convective initiation to take place. The authors describe a modeling study of a case from the Convective Storms Initiation Project (CSIP) in which a single thunderstorm formed behind a front in the southern United Kingdom. The key features of the case were a tongue of low-level high θ_w air associated with a forward-sloping split front (overrunning lower θ_w air above), a convergence line, and a “lid” of high static stability air, which the shower was initially constrained below but later broke through. In this paper, the authors analyze the initiation of the storm, which can be traced back to a region of high ground (Dartmoor) at around 0700 UTC, in more detail using model sensitivity studies with the Met Office Unified Model (MetUM). It is established that the convergence line was initially caused by roughness effects but had a significant thermal component later. Dartmoor had a key role in the development of the thunderstorm. A period of asymmetric flow over the high ground, with stronger low-level descent in the lee, led to a hole in a layer of low-level clouds downstream. The surface solar heating through this hole, in combination with the tongue of low-level high θ_w air associated with the front, caused the shower to initiate with sufficient lifting to enable it later to break through the lid.

Abstract

With many operational centers moving toward order 1-km-gridlength models for routine weather forecasting, this paper presents a systematic investigation of the properties of high-resolution versions of the Met Office Unified Model for short-range forecasting of convective rainfall events. The authors describe a suite of configurations of the Met Office Unified Model running with grid lengths of 12, 4, and 1 km and analyze results from these models for a number of convective cases from the summers of 2003, 2004, and 2005. The analysis includes subjective evaluation of the rainfall fields and comparisons of rainfall amounts, initiation, cell statistics, and a scale-selective verification technique. It is shown that the 4- and 1-km-gridlength models often give more realistic-looking precipitation fields because convection is represented explicitly rather than parameterized. However, the 4-km model representation suffers from large convective cells and delayed initiation because the grid length is too long to correctly reproduce the convection explicitly. These problems are not as evident in the 1-km model, although it does suffer from too numerous small cells in some situations. Both the 4- and 1-km models suffer from poor representation at the start of the forecast in the period when the high-resolution detail is spinning up from the lower-resolution (12 km) starting data used. A scale-selective precipitation verification technique implies that for later times in the forecasts (after the spinup period) the 1-km model performs better than the 12- and 4-km models for lower rainfall thresholds. For higher thresholds the 4-km model scores almost as well as the 1-km model, and both do better than the 12-km model.

Abstract

In this study, bulk mass flux formulations for turbulent fluxes are evaluated for shallow and deep convection using large-eddy simulation data. The bulk mass flux approximation neglects two sources of variability: the interobject variability due to differences between the average properties of different cloud objects, and the intraobject variability due to perturbations within each cloud object. Using a simple cloud–environment decomposition, the interobject and intraobject contributions to the heat flux are comparable in magnitude with that from the bulk mass flux approximation, but do not share a similar vertical distribution, and so cannot be parameterized with a rescaling method. A downgradient assumption is also not appropriate to parameterize the neglected flux contributions because a nonnegligible part is associated with nonlocal buoyant structures. A spectral analysis further suggests the presence of fine structures within the clouds. These points motivate investigations in which the vertical transports are decomposed based on the distribution of vertical velocity. As a result, a “core-cloak” conceptual model is proposed to improve the representation of total vertical fluxes, composed of a strong and a weak draft for both the updrafts and downdrafts. It is shown that the core-cloak representation can well capture the magnitude and vertical distribution of heat and moisture fluxes for both shallow and deep convection.

Abstract

A new frontier in weather forecasting is emerging by operational forecast models now being run at convection-permitting resolutions at many national weather services. However, this is not a panacea; significant systematic errors remain in the character of convective storms and rainfall distributions. The Dynamical and Microphysical Evolution of Convective Storms (DYMECS) project is taking a fundamentally new approach to evaluate and improve such models: rather than relying on a limited number of cases, which may not be representative, the authors have gathered a large database of 3D storm structures on 40 convective days using the Chilbolton radar in southern England. They have related these structures to storm life cycles derived by tracking features in the rainfall from the U.K. radar network and compared them statistically to storm structures in the Met Office model, which they ran at horizontal grid length between 1.5 km and 100 m, including simulations with different subgrid mixing length. The authors also evaluated the scale and intensity of convective updrafts using a new radar technique. They find that the horizontal size of simulated convective storms and the updrafts within them is much too large at 1.5-km resolution, such that the convective mass flux of individual updrafts can be too large by an order of magnitude. The scale of precipitation cores and updrafts decreases steadily with decreasing grid lengths, as does the typical storm lifetime. The 200-m grid-length simulation with standard mixing length performs best over all diagnostics, although a greater mixing length improves the representation of deep convective storms.

Abstract

A set of high-resolution radar observations of convective storms has been collected to evaluate such storms in the Met Office Unified Model during the Dynamical and Microphysical Evolution of Convective Storms (DYMECS) project. The 3-GHz Chilbolton Advanced Meteorological Radar was set up with a scan-scheduling algorithm to automatically track convective storms identified in real time from the operational rainfall radar network. More than 1000 storm observations gathered over 15 days in 2011 and 2012 are used to evaluate the model under various synoptic conditions supporting convection. In terms of the detailed three-dimensional morphology, storms in the 1500-m grid length simulations are shown to produce horizontal structures a factor of 1.5–2 wider compared to radar observations. A set of nested model runs at grid lengths down to 100 m show that the models converge in terms of storm width, but the storm structures in the simulations with the smallest grid lengths are too narrow and too intense compared to the radar observations. The modeled storms were surrounded by a region of drizzle without ice reflectivities above 0 dBZ aloft, which was related to the dominance of ice crystals and was improved by allowing only aggregates as an ice particle habit. Simulations with graupel outperformed the standard configuration for heavy-rain profiles, but the storm structures were a factor of 2 too wide and the convective cores 2 km too deep.

The Third Comparison of Mesoscale Prediction and Research Experiment (COMPARE) workshop was held in Tokyo, Japan, on 13–15 December 1999, cosponsored by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Japan Science and Technology Agency, and the World Meteorological Organization. The third case of COMPARE focuses on an event of explosive tropical cyclone [Typhoon Flo (9019)] development that occurred during the cooperative three field experiments, the Tropical Cyclone Motion experiment 1990, Special Experiment Concerning Recurvature and Unusual Motion, and TYPHOON-90, conducted in the western North Pacific in August and September 1990. Fourteen models from nine countries have participated in at least a part of a set of experiments using a combination of four initial conditions provided and three horizontal resolutions. The resultant forecasts were collected, processed, and verified with analyses and observational data at JMA. Archived datasets have been prepared to be distributed to participating members for use in further evaluation studies.

In the workshop, preliminary conclusions from the evaluation study were presented and discussed in the light of initiatives of the experiment and from the viewpoints of tropical cyclone experts. Initial conditions, depending on both large-scale analyses and vortex bogusing, have a large impact on tropical cyclone intensity predictions. Some models succeeded in predicting the explosive deepening of the target typhoon at least qualitatively in terms of the time evolution of central pressure. Horizontal grid spacing has a very large impact on tropical cyclone intensity prediction, while the impact of vertical resolution is less clear, with some models being very sensitive and others less so. The structure of and processes in the eyewall clouds with subsidence inside as well as boundary layer and moist physical processes are considered important in the explosive development of tropical cyclones. Follow-up research activities in this case were proposed to examine possible working hypotheses related to the explosive development.

New strategies for selection of future COMPARE cases were worked out, including seven suitability requirements to be met by candidate cases. The VORTEX95 case was withdrawn as a candidate, and two other possible cases were presented and discussed.