Identification

Title

Midlatitude cyclone compositing to constrain climate model behavior using satellite observations

Abstract

Identical composite analysis of midlatitude cyclones over oceanic regions has been carried out on both output from the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model, version 3 (CAM3) and multisensor satellite data. By focusing on mean fields associated with a single phenomenon, the ability of the CAM3 to reproduce realistic midlatitude cyclones is critically appraised. A number of perturbations to the control model were tested against observations, including a candidate new microphysics package for the CAM. The new microphysics removes the temperature-dependent phase determination of the old scheme and introduces representations of microphysical processes to convert from one phase to another and from cloud to precipitation species. By subsampling composite cyclones based on systemwide mean strength (mean wind speed) and systemwide mean moisture the authors believe they are able to make meaningful like-with-like comparisons between observations and model output. All variations of the CAM tested overestimate the optical thickness of high-topped clouds in regions of precipitation. Over a system as a whole, the model can both over- and underestimate total high-topped cloud amounts. However, systemwide mean rainfall rates and composite structure appear to be in broad agreement with satellite estimates. When cyclone strength is taken into account, changes in moisture and rainfall rates from both satellite-derived observations and model output as a function of changes in sea surface temperature are in accordance with the Clausius–Clapeyron equation. The authors find that the proposed new microphysics package shows improvement to composite liquid water path fields and cloud amounts.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7pg1rxr

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

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Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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date type

publication

effective date

2009-01-01T00:00:00Z

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Use constraints

Copyright 2008 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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

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