Identification

Title

A climatology of cold air outbreaks over North America: WACCM and ERA-40 comparison and analysis

Abstract

A climatology of cold air outbreaks (CAOs) over North America is presented on the basis of a 50 year simulation of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). This climatology is compared to a similar CAO climatology based on 45 years (1957-2002) of European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts 40 Year Re-Analysis Project (ERA-40) data. A CAO is identified at a given grid point if the following criteria are met: (1) the surface temperature is lower than 1.5 standard deviations below the 31 day climatological running mean, (2) the standard deviation in temperature is greater than 2 K, and (3) conditions 1 and 2 are satisfied over a contiguous area of similar to 5 degrees longitude by 5 degrees latitude. WACCM and ERA-40 comparisons are shown for CAO frequency, temperature anomaly from 31 day climatological mean, geographical location, minimum temperature, and areal extent. Overall, CAOs in WACCM occur similar to 30% less frequently than in ERA-40 but cover similar to 30% greater area and are 1-2 K lower. In midwinter, WACCM CAOs form at lower latitudes and penetrate to lower latitudes compared to CAOs in ERA-40.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d78p61gg

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2011-06-27T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact