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Randal D. Koster
and
Max J. Suarez

Abstract

The potential role of land initialization in seasonal forecasting is illustrated through ensembles of simulations with the NASA Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction Project (NSIPP) model. For each boreal summer during 1997–2001, two 16-member ensembles of 3-month simulations were generated. The first, “AMIP style” (Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project) ensemble establishes the degree to which a perfect prediction of SSTs would contribute to the seasonal prediction of precipitation and temperature over continents. The second ensemble is identical to the first, except that the land surface is also initialized with “realistic” soil moisture contents through the continuous prior application (within GCM simulations leading up to the start of the forecast period) of a daily observational precipitation dataset and the associated avoidance of model drift through the scaling of all surface prognostic variables. A comparison of the two ensembles shows that land initialization has a statistically significant impact on summertime precipitation over only a handful of continental regions. These regions agree, to first order, with those that satisfy three conditions: 1) a tendency toward large initial soil moisture anomalies, 2) a strong sensitivity of evaporation to soil moisture, and 3) a strong sensitivity of precipitation to evaporation. The impact on temperature prediction is more spatially extensive. The degree to which the initialization increases the skill of the forecasts is mixed, reflecting a critical need for the continued development of model parameterizations and data analysis strategies.

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Shrinivas Moorthi
and
Max J. Suarez

Abstract

A simple implementation of the Arakawa and Schubert (1974) cumulus parameterization is presented. The major simplification made is to “relax”the state toward equilibrium each time the parameterization is invoked, rather than requiring that the final state be balanced, as in the original Arakawa-Schubert implementation. This relaxed Arakawa-Schubert (RAS) scheme is evaluated in off-line tests using the Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP) Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE) Phase III data. The results show that RAS is equivalent to the standard implementation of Arakawa-Schubert but is more economical and simpler to code. RAS also avoids the ill-posed problem that occurs in Arakawa-Schubert as a result of having to solve for a balanced state.

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Akio Arakawa
and
Max J. Suarez

Abstract

A vertical finite-difference scheme for the primitive equations in sigma coordinates is obtained by requiring that the discrete equations retain some important properties of the continuous equations. A family of schemes is derived whose members conserve total energy, maintain an integral constraint on the vertically integrated pressure gradient force, have a local differencing of the hydrostatic equation, and give exact forms of the hydrostatic equation and the pressure gradient force for particular atmospheres. The proposed scheme is a member of this family that in addition conserves the global mass integral of the potential temperature under abiabatic processes.

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Randal D. Koster
and
Max J. Suarez

Abstract

Observed monthly precipitation anomalies are standardized across midlatitude land, and ergodicity is invoked to combine the spatially distributed data into probability density functions (pdfs) of precipitation conditioned on the strength of earlier anomalies. The conditional pdfs, though broad and overlapping, are indeed distinct at a high (99.9%) level of confidence. This implies a nonzero degree of predictability for midlatitude precipitation, even at 3-month leads. This behavior is reproduced by an AGCM only when land–atmosphere feedback in the model is enabled.

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David A. Randall
and
Max J. Suarez

Abstract

Result obtained with a mixed layer model are used to study the dynamics of stratomulus formation and dissipation in subtropical marine stratocumulus cloud regimes. The model used allows entrainment to be driven by shear as well as buoyancy, and includes a very crude parameterization of the partial blackness of thin cloud layers. Model results show that for some values of the large-scale divergence there are three equilibrium mixed layer structures, two of which are stable. One of the stable equilibria is cloudy, deep, and buoyancy-driven, while the other is clear, shallow, and shear-driven. It is found that as a result of hysteresis effects a transient increase in the large-scale divergence can produce a long-lasting break in the clouds.

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Paul S. Schopf
and
Max J. Suarez

Abstract

Results are presented from a 35-year integration of a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. Both ocean and atmosphere are two-level, nonlinear primitive equations models. The global atmospheric model is forced by a steady, zonally symmetric Newtonian heating. The ocean model is solved in a rectangular tropical basin. Heat fluxes between ocean and atmosphere are linear in air-sea temperature differences, and the interfacial stress is proportional to lower-level atmospheric winds.

The coupled models produce ENSO-like variability on time scales of 3 to 5 years. Since there is no external time-dependent forcing, these are self-sustained vacillations of the nonlinear system. It is argued that the energetics of the vacillations is that of unstable coupled modes and that the time scale is crucially dependent on the effects of ocean waves propagating in a closed basin.

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Max J. Suarez
and
Dean G. Duffy

Abstract

When sufficiently large zonally asymmetric tropical heating is introduced in a two-level model of global atmospheric flow, its general circulation becomes strongly superrotating. The nature of the superrotating solutions is studied by examining momentum and heat budgets for a range of values of thermal forcing. Changes in the transport of zonal momentum by transient eddies appear to play the key role in the transition to superrotation. The dramatic bifurcation of the solutions of this model may help explain the maintenance and variability of the zonal mean flow in the tropics.

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Julio T. Bacmeister
and
Max J. Suarez

Abstract

A detailed examination of the atmospheric momentum budget over the equatorial Pacific and its relation to oceanic wind stresses is undertaken using the results of a 20-yr (1979–99), forced-SST, AGCM experiment. The results show that free-tropospheric pressure gradients play a significant role in forcing boundary layer flow in the model. In particular, the time-mean and interannual variability of wind stress at the surface is found to be dominated by forcing from the free troposphere. The NCEP reanalyses from 1979–99 are also examined and a similar result is found, although the relative importance of this free-tropospheric forcing is somewhat higher in the model.

The seasonal cycle of free-tropospheric forcing in the model is found to be substantially stronger in the model than in the reanalysis, and that has a clearly negative impact on the simulated seasonal cycle of surface wind stresses. In the model, these free-tropospheric pressure gradients are not balanced by turbulent stresses or other dissipative forces. Rather, the momentum budget analysis shows that they are balanced by advective momentum tendencies, with vertical advection of momentum in the descending branch of the Walker circulation playing an important role.

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Max J. Suarez
and
Paul S. Schopf

Abstract

A simple nonlinear model is proposed for the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. Its key feature is the inclusion of oceanic wave transit effects through a negative, delayed feedback. A linear stability analysis and numerical results are presented to show that the period of the oscillation is typically several times the delay. It is argued such an effect can account for the long time scale of ENSO.

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Isacc M. Held
and
Max J. Suarez

Abstract

A useful but as yet under-utilized tool for climatic studies is an atmospheric model in which the time evolution of large-scale eddies is resolved explicitly, but in a relatively simple dynamical framework. One such model is described in detail in this study–a two-level primitive equation model on a sphere with variable static stability, finite-differenced in the meridional direction but Fourier analyzed and then very severely truncated in the zonal direction. Two versions of the model-moist and dry–are developed, the maintenance of the model's static stability being markedly different in the two versions.

Statistically steady states are obtained for a variety of spectral truncations For both versions of the model in order to determine the fewest zonal wavenumbers one can retain and still obtain a reasonable zonally averaged circulation. Including only one wave, of wavelength typical of strongly unstable waves in mid-latitudes, results in a circulation with a subpolar jet as well as a subtropical jet in the zonal wind. The addition of a longer wave (i.e., the addition of wavenumber 3 to wavenumber 6) results in the destruction of the subpolar jet.No further dramatic changes in the zonally averaged flow occur as more waves are added to the system.

Features of the model's dynamics which might limit its utility are emphasized, notably the dependence of the strength of the Hadley cell on the details of the convective adjustment scheme. We find, however, that the total energy transported by the Hadley cell is insensitive to such details.

Climatic sensitivity experiments with thee models will be described in forthcoming papers.

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