WCRP and WWRP THORPEX YOTC (Year of Tropical Convection) Project, Single Parameter 3-Hourly Surface Forecast Time Series, Transformed to a Regular 1600 by 800 (N400) Gaussian Grid

The realistic representation of tropical convection in our global atmospheric models is a long-standing grand challenge for numerical weather forecasts and global climate predictions. Our lack of fundamental knowledge and practical capabilities in this area leaves us disadvantaged in modeling and predicting prominent phenomena of the tropical atmosphere such as the ITCZ, ENSO, TBO, monsoons and their active or break periods, the MJO, subtropical stratus decks, near-surface ocean properties, easterly waves, tropical cyclones, bulk budgets of cloud microphysical quantities, and even the diurnal cycle. Furthermore, tropical weather and climate disturbances strongly influence stratospheric-tropospheric exchange as well as the extratropics, with the later mediated via poleward migration of synoptic systems or through initiating Rossby wave trains that can involve a range of processes and time scales.

To address the challenge of tropical convection, WCRP and WWRP/THORPEX propose a Year of coordinated observing, modeling and forecasting of organized tropical convection and its influences on predictability as a contribution to the United Nations Year of Planet Earth to complement the International Polar Year (IPY). This effort is intended to exploit the vast amounts of existing and emerging observations, the expanding computational resources and the development of new, high-resolution modeling frameworks, with the objective of advancing the characterization, diagnosis, modeling, parameterization and prediction of multiscale convective and dynamic interactions, including the two-way interaction between tropical and extra-tropical weather or climate. This activity and its ultimate success will be based on the coordination of a wide range of ongoing and planned international programmatic activities (e.g., GEWEX/CEOP/GCSS, AMY, EOS, GOOS), strong collaboration among the operational prediction, research laboratory and academic communities, and the construction of a comprehensive data base consisting of satellite data, in-situ data sets and global, high-resolution forecast and simulation model outputs relevant to tropical convection. The proposed timing, focus year approach and integrated framework of this effort is intended to leverage the most benefit from recent investments in Earth Science infrastructure as well as entrain a new generation of young scientists into tackling the outstanding problems in the field of weather and climate prediction.

It is recommended that potential users of YOTC peruse the Related RDA Datasets ds629.1-ds629.6 (please see below) which represent transformed versions of the raw ECMWF YOTC archive (ds629.0) by the Data Support Section. The transformed versions are archived on an N400 1600 by 800 regular Gaussian grid, starting from high resolution reduced Gaussian grids and spectral coefficients. In addition, horizontal winds have been added and computed from spectral vorticity and divergence.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • Dave Stepaniak
    davestep@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Research Data Archive

Temporal Range

  • Begin:  2008-05-01T12:00:00Z
    End:  2010-05-01T15:00:00Z

Keywords

Resource Type dataset
Temporal Range Begin 2008-05-01T12:00:00Z
Temporal Range End 2010-05-01T15:00:00Z
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat 89.828
Bounding Box South Lat -89.828
Bounding Box West Long -180
Bounding Box East Long 180
Spatial Representation grid
Spatial Resolution 0.225 degree
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format WMO_GRIB1 (Binary)
Standardized Resource Format GRIB
Asset Size 1519907 MB
Legal Constraints

Downloading/Accessing data from this dataset implies acceptance of ECMWF's Terms of Use [https://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/licences/general/]


Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name Dave Stepaniak
Resource Support Email davestep@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Research Data Archive
Distributor NCAR Research Data Archive
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email rdahelp@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization NCAR Research Data Archive

Author European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Publisher Research Data Archive at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Computational and Information Systems Laboratory
Publication Date 2012-09-18
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) https://doi.org/10.5065/D6707ZGM
Alternate Identifier d629005
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
Progress completed
Metadata Date 2024-08-04T02:11:34Z
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.rda::d629005
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. (2012). WCRP and WWRP THORPEX YOTC (Year of Tropical Convection) Project, Single Parameter 3-Hourly Surface Forecast Time Series, Transformed to a Regular 1600 by 800 (N400) Gaussian Grid. Research Data Archive at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Computational and Information Systems Laboratory. https://doi.org/10.5065/D6707ZGM. Accessed 10 October 2024.

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