Identification

Title

Two dynamical core formulation flaws exposed by a baroclinic instability test case

Abstract

Two flaws in the semi-Lagrangian algorithm originally implemented as an optional dynamical core in the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM3.1) are exposed by steady-state and baroclinic instability test cases. Remedies are demonstrated and have been incorporated in the dynamical core. One consequence of the first flaw is an erroneous damping of the speed of a zonally uniform zonal wind undergoing advection by a zonally uniform zonal flow field. It results from projecting the transported vector wind expressed in unit vectors at the arrival point to the surface of the sphere and is eliminated by rotating the vector to be parallel to the surface. The second flaw is the formulation of an a posteriori energy fixer that, although small, systematically affects the temperature field and leads to an incorrect evolution of the growing baroclinic wave. That fixer restores the total energy at each time step by changing the provisional forecast temperature proportionally to the magnitude of the temperature change at that time step. Two other fixers are introduced that do not exhibit the flaw. One changes the provisional temperature everywhere by an additive constant, and the other changes it proportionally by a multiplicative constant.

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document

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code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7sj1mn4

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

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title

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reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

effective date

2009-02-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2009 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.

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None

Responsible organisations

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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

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