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Increase of the vertical resolution of the GLAS Fourth Order General Circulation Model (GCM) near the Earth's surface and installation of a new package of parameterization schemes for subgrid-scale physical processes were sought so that the GLAS Model GCM will predict the resolved vertical structure of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) for all grid points.
The objective of this research is the development and implementation of normal mode procedures for use with the GLAS analysis/forecast system. Specific tasks of this work include: (1) high latitude filtering of model fields to preserve the GLAS GCM's linear stability during integration; (2) development of nonlinear normal mode initialization (NLNMI) processes, both adiabatic and diabatic. Using NLNMI to initialize GLAS analyses; investigation of the impact of normal mode initialization on the GLAS analysis/forecast system, especially in regard to data assimilation; and (3) diagnosis of the 1-3 day systemic forecast errors of the GLAS GCM.
The objective was to perform descriptive global-scale diagnoses of the Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences (GLAS) First GARP Global Experiment (GLAS) SOP-1 analyses and to compare these diagnoses against controlled, real-data integrations of the GLAS General Circulation Model (GCM) as well as other data sets. The effects of critical latitudes, the diagnoses of the influence of tropical wind data and latent heating upon the GLAS GCM, investigations of planetary wave structure on various time scales from the diurnal to the monthly, and comparison of the GLAS analyses with other analyses are discussed.
Experiments were performed to examine the impact of adopting various procedures in the assimilation of patches of data during the progress of a numerical forecast. A barotropic model described by Takacs and Balgovind, 1983 is used for the experiments. The model is global and its discretization is similar to the GLA Fourth Order GCM. The effect of orography is included in the model. The experiments are of an identical twin kind. The nature run starts from global fields of wind (u and v) and height (h) at 300 mb. They are real data of January, 1979 OOZ which were interpolated from the adjacent sigma levels of the GLA GCM and then balanced by the bounded derivative method. From this initial state a 6 day forecast is performed. At intervals of 3 hours this information is saved over sectors of 60 width in longitude, from the south pole to the north pole, to simulate data coverage and observational frequency of a polar orbiting satellite.
A general circulation model (GCM) study is presented in which cloud radiative properties are computed from cloud liquid water content inferred from the GCM hydrological cycle. Model-generated and satellite albedos are in rough agreement. Analysis of the cloud radiative forcing indicates that cloud albedo effects overcome cloud infrared opacity effects in most regions. Both computed and observed albedo of clouds decrease from low to high altitudes. The model with variable cloud optics produces significantly different regional albedos from the same one with fixed cloud optics, especially over the tropics. The cloud droplet size distribution also has a significant impact on the model albedos. The temperature of the tropical upper troposphere is somewhat sensitive to the microphysical characteristics of the model cirrus clouds.
Two dimensional modeling has become an established technique for the simulation of the global structure of trace constituents. Such models are simpler to formulate and cheaper to operate than three dimensional general circulation models, while avoiding some of the gross simplifications of one dimensional models. Nevertheless, the parameterization of eddy fluxes required in a 2-D model is not a trivial problem. This fact has apparently led some to interpret the shortcomings of existing 2-D models as indicating that the parameterization procedure is wrong in principle. There are grounds to believe that these shortcomings result primarily from incorrect implementations of the predictions of eddy transport theory and that a properly based parameterization may provide a good basis for atmospheric modeling. The existence of these GCM-derived coefficients affords an unprecedented opportunity to test the validity of the flux-gradient parameterization. To this end, a zonally averaged (2-D) model was developed, using these coefficients in the transport parameterization. Results from this model for a number of contrived tracer experiments were compared with the parent GCM. The generally good agreement substantially validates the flus-gradient parameterization, and thus the basic principle of 2-D modeling.
The persistence of planetary wave anomalies and their effect on climate are studied. Consideration is given to the existence of suitable resonances, the effect of stationary waves on mean flow, the relation between tropical heating and forcing high-latitude stationary waves, and the effect of El Nino on midlatitude stationary waves. The ability of a linearized GCM to represent stationary wave patterns is evaluated by comparing the data with GCM data patterns. The role of free Rossby waves in large, transient planetary-wave anomalies is discussed.
A linear primitive-equation stationary-wave model is developed to describe Northern Hemisphere winter stationary eddies on a sphere, and simulation results are compared with the predictions of a flat-lower-boundary GCM in extensive graphs and maps. The linear model is shown to reproduce the general behavior of the GCM well, with 10-30-percent underestimation of amplitudes in the Northern Hemisphere extratropical upper troposphere. The response to global heating plus transient eddy flux convergences is then decomposed into responses to total tropical forcing (heating plus transients) and total extratropical forcing (upper and lower tropospheric transients and latent, sensible, and radiative heating). The quality of the simulation is found to deteriorate rapidly if transient forcing is omitted, although somewhat better results are obtained by substituting thermal damping for transient forcing. The importance of low-level-transient parameterization for theories of time-mean low-level flow is emphasized.
As a preliminary step in the development of a general circulation model for general planetary use, a simplified vesion of thef GISS Model I GCM has been run at various rotation periods to investigate differences between the dynamical regimes of rapidly and slowly rotating planets. To isolate the dynamical processes, the hydrologic cycle is suppressed and the atmosphere is forced with perpetual annual mean solar heating. All other parameters except the rotation period remain fixed at their terrestrial values. Experiments were conducted for rotation periods of 2/3, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 64 and 256 days. The results are in qualitative agreement with similar experiments carried out previously with other GCMs and with certain aspects of one Venus GCM simulation. As rotation rate decreases, the energetics shifts from baroclinc to quasi-barotropic when the Rossby radius of deformation reaches planetary scale. The Hadley cell expands poleward and replaces eddies as the primary mode of large-scale heat transport. Associated with this is a poleward shift of the baroclinic zone and jet stream and a reduction of the equator-pole temperature contrast. Midlatitude jet strength peaks at 8 days period, as does the weak positive equatorial zonal wind which occurs at upper levels at all rotation periods. Eddy momentum transport switches from poleward to equatorward at the same period. Tropospheric mean static stability generally increases in the tropics and decreases in midlatitudes as rotation rate decreases, but the global mean static stability is independent of rotation rate. The peak in the eddy kinetic energy spectrum shifts toward lower wavenumbers, reaching wavenumber 1 at a period of 8 days. Implications of these results for the dynamics of Venus and Titan are discussed. Specifically, it is suggested that the extent of low-level convection determines whether the Gierasch mechanism contributes significantly to equatorial superrotation on these planets.
A capability is developed for monitoring tracer water movement in the three-dimensional Goddard Institute for Space Science Atmospheric General Circulation Model (GCM). A typical experiment with the tracer water model follows water evaporating from selected grid squares and determines where this water first returns to the Earth's surface as precipitation or condensate, thereby providing information on the lateral scales of hydrological transport in the GCM. Through a comparison of model results with observations in nature, inferences can be drawn concerning real world water transport. Tests of the tracer water model include a comparison of simulated and observed vertically-integrated vapor flux fields and simulations of atomic tritium transport from the stratosphere to the oceans. The inter-annual variability of the tracer water model results is also examined.
The longitude and time dependence of excessive wind speed errors above subtropical jets in current GCM forecasts is studied for 14 five-day winter forecasts using the NASA Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheres fourth-order GCM. Several distinct phenomena, which may be divided into four categories, are found to contribute to the excess winds. These categories are: (1) error growth above the jet near the Himalayas; (2) error growth above the jet initiated elsewhere followed by advection; (3) tropical moisture bursts appearing in equatorial regions and migrating northeastward to merge with and distort the jet; and (4) undulatory growth of waves in the meridional component of the jet stream velocity. The results of additional sensitivity studies of the Himalayan region error are also reported.
The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) GCM of Hansen et al. (1983) was run, with 4 deg x 5 deg resolution, with doubled CO2 and two sets of sea surface temperature gradient distributions. One set was derived from the equilibrium doubled CO2 run of the 8 deg x 10 deg GISS GCM, with minimal high latitude amplification. The other set resembled closely the GFDL model results, with greater amplification. Both experiments had the same global mean surface air temperature change. The two experiments were often found to produce substantially different climate characteristics. With reduced high latitude amplification (set one), and thus, more equatorial warming, there was a greater increase in specific humidity and the greenhouse capacity of the atmosphere, resulting in a warmer atmosphere in general. Features such as the low-latitude precipitation, Hadley cell intensity, jet stream magnitude, and atmospheric energy transports all increased in comparison with the control run. In contrast, these features all decreased in the experiment with greater high latitude amplification (set two).
GCM simulations and data for the August 6-8, 1979 period are used to investigate the effect of tropical latent heat release in accelerations of the Southern Hemisphere subtropical jet. The analysis indicates that the jet accelerations were due both to external and internal Rossby modes, with somewhat stronger contributions from the external mode. The case study and GCM results suggest that divergent circulations which project mostly into inertia-gravity waves react to changes in latent heat release in 1-2 days, that the impact in subtropical latitudes to latent heat release is felt in 2-4 days, and that this impact becomes fully established after about 6 days.
A numerical experiment performed by Hayashi and Sumi (1986) with an atmospheric GCM has shown that moist convection in the equatorial region is spontaneously organized into a form of supercluster (an area of precipitation with a spatial extent of about 2000 km and an eastward propagation speed of about 15 m/sec. Here, the existence of superclusters in the real atmosphere is shown through a comparison between satellite observations and the GCM results. It is argued that eastward motion of convective activity occurs not only as the well-known property of the 30-60-day oscillation, but as a property of synoptic-scale disturbances at the equator.
Average predictability and error growth in a simple realistic two-level general circulation model (GCM) were investigated using a series of Monte Carlo experiments for fixed external forcing (perpetual winter in the Northern Hemisphere). It was found that, for realistic initial errors, the dependence of the limit of dynamic predictability on total wavenumber was similar to that found for the ECMWF model for the 1980/1981 winter conditions, with the lowest wavenumbers showing significant skill for forecast ranges of more than 1 month. On the other hand, for very small amplitude errors distributed according to the climate spectrum, the total error growth was superexponential, reaching a maximum growth rate (2-day doubling time) in about 1 week. A simple empirical model of error variance, which involved two broad wavenumber bands and incorporating a 3/2 power saturation term, was found to provide an excellent fit to the GCM error growth behavior.
The effects of radiatively active clouds on the climate simulated by a GCM are studied, focusing on the effects of upper tropospheric stratiform clouds associated with deep cumulus convection and the interactions of these clouds with convection and the large-scale circulation. The isolated effects of atmospheric cloud radiative forcing are analyzed using a model climate of an ocean-covered earth. It is found that the upper tropospheric cloudiness associated with cumulus convection has a powerful influence on both the convection and the large-scale circulation. Consideration is given to the importance of developing a GCM which includes a direct representation of the radiative, thermodynamical, and dynamical couplings between the convection parameterization and the large-scale saturation parameterization.
The long-term climatic evolution of the earth has been studied on the basis of one-dimensional, globally-averaged climate models yielding only a qualitative understanding of climatic history, and in any case proceeding under a series of potentially invalid assumptions. One such major assumption, which invites comparison with a three-dimensional GCM, is that of fixed relative humidity. A GCM may also be used to study the problem of water loss from both the earth and Venus.
The causal mechanisms for the recovery of the perturbed high-latitude thermospheric composition to the unperturbed state in the period following a geomagnetic storm are investigated. Model runs of the NCAR thermosphere/ionosphere GCM (TIGCM) and thermosphere GCM are used to calculate the averaged mass mixing ratio variations and the forcing terms responsible for these variations during the recovery phase of a geomagnetic storm. High latitude compositional recovery is found to occur in the NCAR TIGCM on a time scale of about 12 hr to 1 day. This time scale is in agreement with previously observed time scales for typical poststorm F region electron density recoveries. Neither molecular diffusion nor large-scale horizontal advection is the dominant process in determining the compositional state during the recovery period. Thermospheric compositional recovery at high geomagnetic latitudes is driven primarily by vertical advection.