C. Roberto Mechoso

Global and Seasonal Assessment of Interactions between Climate and Vegetation Biophysical Processes: A GCM Study with Different Land–Vegetation Representations

Abstract A global and seasonal assessment of regions of the earth with strong climate–vegetation biophysical process (VBP) interactions is provided. The presence of VBP and degree of VBP effects on climate were assessed based on the skill of simulations of observed global precipitation by two general circulation models of the atmosphere coupled to three land models with varying degrees of complexity in VBP representation. The simulated VBP effects on precipitation were estimated to be about 10% of observed precipitation globally and 40% over land; the strongest impacts were in the monsoon regions. Among these, VBP impacts were highest on the West African, South Asian, East Asian, and South American monsoons. The specific characteristics of vegetation–precipitation interactions in northern high latitudes were identified. Different regions had different primary impact season(s) depending on regional climate characteristics and geographical features. The characteristics of VBP effects on surface energy and w...

Seasonal variations of the links between the interannual variability of South America and the South Pacific

The present study focuses on the leading interannual mode of continental-scale atmospheric variability over South America, which is characterized by an equivalent barotropic vortex (referred to as VOSA in the text) centered over the eastern subtropical coast of the continent. The principal aim is to determine whether and in what season VOSA is the downstream extension of the leading Pacific South American mode (PSA1). Another objective is to examine the extent to which VOSA and PSA1 are forced by El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The research is based on examination of reanalysis data and output of experiments with an atmospheric general circulation model. The emphasis is on the southern spring, summer and fall seasons, during which VOSA modulates the interannual precipitation variability over the continent. A similar relationship is not found during the southern winter. It is found that VOSA is an integral part of PSA1 during spring and fall. In these seasons, PSA1/VOSA is originated primarily by large-scale atmospheric internal variability with the forcing by ENSO accounting for 14 and 8% of the total variance, respectively. During the southern summer season, when ENSO peaks, PSA1 is not a dominant mode of atmospheric variability, and VOSA primarily results from continental-scale internal variability.

Baroclinic-to-Barotropic Pathway in El Niño–Southern Oscillation Teleconnections from the Viewpoint of a Barotropic Rossby Wave Source

AbstractThe baroclinic-to-barotropic pathway in ENSO teleconnections is examined from the viewpoint of a barotropic Rossby wave source that results from decomposition into barotropic and baroclinic components. Diagnoses using the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis are supplemented by analysis of the response of a tropical atmospheric model of intermediate complexity to the NCEP–NCAR barotropic Rossby wave source. Among the three barotropic Rossby wave source contributions (shear advection, vertical advection, and surface drag), the leading contribution is from shear advection and, more specifically, the mean baroclinic zonal wind advecting the anomalous baroclinic zonal wind. Vertical advection is the smallest term, while surface drag tends to cancel and reinforce the shear advection in different regions through damping on the baroclinic mode, which spins up a barotropic response. There are also nontrivial impacts of transients in the barotropic wind response to ENSO. Both tropical and subtropical baroclinic vorticity ...

Sensitivity of Global Tropical Climate to Land Surface Processes: Mean State and Interannual Variability

AbstractThis study examines the sensitivity of the global climate to land surface processes (LSP) using an atmospheric general circulation model both uncoupled (with prescribed SSTs) and coupled to an oceanic general circulation model. The emphasis is on the interactive soil moisture and vegetation biophysical processes, which have first-order influence on the surface energy and water budgets. The sensitivity to those processes is represented by the differences between model simulations, in which two land surface schemes are considered: 1) a simple land scheme that specifies surface albedo and soil moisture availability and 2) the Simplified Simple Biosphere Model (SSiB), which allows for consideration of interactive soil moisture and vegetation biophysical process. Observational datasets are also employed to assess the extent to which results are realistic.The mean state sensitivity to different LSP is stronger in the coupled mode, especially in the tropical Pacific. Furthermore, the seasonal cycle of SS...

On the Connection between Continental-Scale Land Surface Processes and the Tropical Climate in a Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere–Land System

AbstractAn evaluation is presented of the impact on tropical climate of continental-scale perturbations given by different representations of land surface processes (LSPs) in a general circulation model that includes atmosphere–ocean interactions. One representation is a simple land scheme, which specifies climatological albedos and soil moisture availability. The other representation is the more comprehensive Simplified Simple Biosphere Model, which allows for interactive soil moisture and vegetation biophysical processes.The results demonstrate that such perturbations have strong impacts on the seasonal mean states and seasonal cycles of global precipitation, clouds, and surface air temperature. The impact is especially significant over the tropical Pacific Ocean. To explore the mechanisms for such impact, model experiments are performed with different LSP representations confined to selected continental-scale regions where strong interactions of climate–vegetation biophysical processes are present. The...

Tropical Convective Transition Statistics and Causality in the Water Vapor–Precipitation Relation

AbstractPrevious work by various authors has pointed to the role of lower-free-tropospheric humidity in affecting the onset of deep convection in the tropics. Empirical relationships between column water vapor (CWV) and precipitation have been inferred to result from these effects. Evidence from previous work has included deep convective conditional instability calculations for entraining plumes, in which the lower-free-tropospheric environment affects the onset of deep convection due to the differential impact on buoyancy of turbulent entrainment of dry versus moist air. The relationship between deep convection and water vapor is, however, a two-way interaction because convection also moistens the free troposphere. The present study adds an additional line of evidence toward fully establishing the causality of the precipitation–water vapor relationship. Parameter perturbation experiments using the coupled Community Earth System Model (CESM) with high-time-resolution output are analyzed for a set of stati...

A treatment for the stratocumulus-to-cumulus transition in GCMs

Numerical models of climate have great difficulties with the simulation of marine low clouds in the subtropical Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. It has been especially difficult to reproduce the observed geographical distributions of the different cloud regimes in those regions. The present study discusses mechanisms proposed in previous works for changing one regime into another. One criterion is based on the theory of stratocumulus destruction through cloud top entrainment instability due to buoyancy reversal—situations in which the mixture of two air parcels becomes denser than either of the original parcels due to evaporation of cloud water. Another criterion is based on the existence of decoupling in the boundary layer. When decoupled, the stratocumulus regime changes to another in which these clouds can still exist together with cumulus. In a LES study, the authors have suggested that a combination of those two criteria can be used to diagnose whether, at a location, the cloud regime corresponds to a well-mixed stratocumulus regime, a shallow cumulus regime, or to a transitional regime where the boundary layer is decoupled. The concept is tested in the framework of an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM). It is found that several outstanding features of disagreement between simulation and observation can be interpreted as misrepresentations of the cloud regimes by the GCM. A novel criterion for switching among regimes is proposed to alleviate the effects of these misrepresentations.

El Niño–Southern Oscillation Sea Level Pressure Anomalies in the Western Pacific: Why Are They There?*

AbstractAlthough sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies in the western Pacific have long been recognized as an integral part of the classic Southern Oscillation pattern associated with El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), there is an unresolved question regarding the dynamics that maintain these anomalies. Traditional studies of the ENSO response in the tropics assume a single deep baroclinic mode associated with the tropospheric temperature anomalies. However, the SLP anomalies in the western Pacific are spatially separated from the baroclinic signal in the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis, CMIP5 models, and an intermediate complexity model [a quasi-equilibrium tropical circulation model (QTCM)]. Separation of ENSO SLP anomalies in the tropical Pacific into baroclinic and barotropic components indicates that the barotropic component contributes throughout the tropics and constitutes the primary contribution in the western Pacific. To demonstrate the roles of baroclinic and barotropic modes in ENSO teleconnections within...

Diagnosis of the marine low cloud simulation in the NCAR community earth system model (CESM) and the NCEP global forecast system (GFS)-modular ocean model v4 (MOM4) coupled model

Abstract We present a diagnostic analysis of the marine low cloud climatology simulated by two state-of-the-art coupled atmosphere–ocean models: the National Center for Atmospheric Research community earth system model version 1 (CESM1) and the National Center for Environmental Predictions global forecasting system-modular ocean model version 4 (GFS-MOM4) coupled model. In the CESM1, the coastal stratocumulus (Sc)-topped planetary boundary layers (PBLs) in the subtropical Eastern Pacific are well-simulated but the climatological transition from Sc to shallow cumulus (Cu) is too abrupt and occurs too close to the coast. By contrast, in the GFS-MOM4 the coastal Sc amount and PBL depth are severely underestimated while the transition from Sc to shallow Cu is “delayed” and offshore Sc cover is too extensive in the subtropical Eastern Pacific. We discuss the possible connections between these differences in the simulations and differences in the parameterizations of shallow convection and boundary layer turbulence in the two models.

HIGH BIT RATE EXPERIMENTS OVER ACTS

This paper describes two high data rate experiments chat are being developed for the gigabit NASA Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS). The first is a telescience experiment that remotely acquires image data at the Keck telescope from the Caltech campus. The second is a distributed global climate application that is run between two supercomputer centers interconnected by ACTS. The implementation approach for each is described along with the expected results. Also. the ACTS high data rate (HDR) ground station is also described in detail.