Abstract

Effects of subgrid-scale orography are represented in most large-scale models of the atmosphere by means of parameterizing subgrid-scale orographic gravity wave drag and/or enhancing grid-scale orography, such as ‘envelope orography,’ with the use of subgrid-scale orographic variance. A new gravity wave parameterization scheme and an envelope orography have been implemented in the UCLA general circulation model. The impact of gravity wave drag and envelope orography on simulations using the tropospheric-stratospheric 15-layer version of the model are briefly discussed and compared.

The gravity wave parameterization scheme and the envelope orography have a qualitatively similar and beneficial impact on ensemble means of simulated January climate. The midlatitude westerlies are weakened at all levels and the polar atmosphere is warmed in the Northern Hemisphere. A combination of the two produces the best results. Sensitivity experiments with the parameterization scheme indicate the importance of the selective enhancement of low-level drag.

Although the overall impact of gravity wave drag on the mean fields is similar when using the standard version of orography or the envelope orography, the magnitudes of gravity wave drag are systematically different in simulations using the two representations of orography in the midlatitude Northern Hemisphere. The modification in the magnitudes of simulated meridional eddy momentum fluxes by gravity wave drag with the standard orography is as in earlier studies. This is, however, not the case with the envelope orography. Whereas the impact of gravity wave drag and the envelope orography on the mean fields is similar, it is not necessarily true in terms of the individual components of simulated angular momentum budget.

Abstract

Parameterization of gravity waves due to subgrid-scale orography is now included in most existing large-scale models of the atmosphere. Parameterization schemes, however, have so far been evaluated mainly in view of the overall performance of the large-scale models. This may lead to an inappropriate assessment of the schemes since errors from various sources may interact with one another. To avoid this situation, an approach is taken in which a numerical model that explicitly resolves gravity waves is used to evaluate the performance of the schemes. For this purpose, a mesoscale two-dimensional nonlinear anelastic nonhydrostatic model is developed and used to numerically simulate gravity waves for a variety of orographic conditions. Regarding a subdomain of the mesoseale model as the horizontal grid interval of a large-scale model, two vertical profiles of gravity wave drag are compared–one for the subdomain-averaged values of the drag simulated by the mesoseale model and the other for the drag calculated by a parameterization scheme applied to the subdomain-averaged variables.

A test parameterization scheme is constructed by adopting the essential features of the existing schemes. An extensive evaluation of the test parameterization scheme with the aid of the dataset obtained from the mountain wave simulations shows that the scheme does not properly treat the enhancement of drag due to low-level wave breaking through the resonant amplification of nonhydrostatic waves. The authors show that the standard deviation of orography and the tuning coefficient in the scheme alone are not sufficient for properly representing this effect. The authors discuss the approach taken to overcome this deficiency by including additional statistical information on subgrid-scale orography in the input to the parameterization. A revised parameterization scheme constructed following this approach is presented.

Abstract

A tropical–polar connection and its seasonal dependence are examined using the real-time multivariate Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) (RMM) index and daily indices for the annular modes, the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO). On the intraseasonal time scale, the MJO appears to force the annular modes in both hemispheres. On this scale, during the cold season, the convection in the Indian Ocean precedes the increase of the AO/AAO. Interestingly, during the boreal winter (Southern Hemisphere warm season), strong MJOs in the Indian Ocean are related to a decrease of the AAO index, and AO/AAO tendencies are out of phase. On the longer time scales, a persistent AO/AAO anomaly appears to influence the convection in the tropical belt and impact the distribution of MJO-preferred phases. It is shown that this may be a result of the sea surface temperature (SST) changes related to a persistent AO, with cooling over the Indian Ocean and warming over Indonesia. In the Southern Hemisphere, the SST anomalies are to some extent also related to a persistent AAO pattern, but this relationship is much weaker and appears only during the Southern Hemisphere cold season. On the basis of these results, a mechanism involving the air–sea interaction in the tropics is suggested as a possible link between persistent AO and convective activity in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific.

Abstract

A very strong Arctic major sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event occurred in late January 2009. The stratospheric temperature climbed abruptly and the zonal winds reversed direction, completely splitting the polar stratospheric vortex. A hindcast of this event is attempted by using the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS), which includes the full stratosphere with its top at around 65 km. As Part I of this study, extended-range (3 week) forecast experiments are performed using NOGAPS without the aid of data assimilation. A unified parameterization of orographic drag is designed by combining two parameterization schemes; one by Webster et al., and the other by Kim and Arakawa and Kim and Doyle. With the new unified orographic drag scheme implemented, NOGAPS is able to reproduce the salient features of this Arctic SSW event owing to enhanced planetary wave activity induced by more comprehensive subgrid-scale orographic drag processes. The impact of the SSW on the tropospheric circulation is also investigated in view of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) index, which calculated using 1000-hPa geopotential height. The NOGAPS with upgraded orographic drag physics better simulates the trend of the AO index as verified by the Met Office analysis, demonstrating its improved stratosphere–troposphere coupling. It is argued that the new model is more suitable for forecasting SSW events in the future and can serve as a tool for studying various stratospheric phenomena.

Abstract

A high-order accurate radiative transfer (RT) model developed by Fu and Liou has been implemented into the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) to improve the energy budget and forecast skill. The Fu–Liou RT model is a four-stream algorithm (with a two-stream option) integrating over 6 shortwave bands and 12 longwave bands. The experimental 10-day forecasts and analyses from data assimilation cycles are compared with the operational output, which uses a two-stream RT model of three shortwave and five longwave bands, for both winter and summer periods. The verifications against observations of radiosonde and surface data show that the new RT model increases temperature accuracy in both forecasts and analyses by reducing mean bias and root-mean-square errors globally. In addition, the forecast errors also grow more slowly in time than those of the operational NOGAPS because of accumulated effects of more accurate cloud–radiation interactions. The impact of parameterized cloud effective radius in estimating liquid and ice water optical properties is also investigated through a sensitivity test by comparing with the cases using constant cloud effective radius to examine the temperature changes in response to cloud scattering and absorption. The parameterization approach is demonstrated to outperform that of constant radius by showing smaller errors and better matches to observations. This suggests the superiority of the new RT model relative to its operational counterpart, which does not use cloud effective radius. An effort has also been made to improve the computational efficiency of the new RT model for operational applications.

Abstract

This study is Part II of the effort to improve the forecasting of sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events by using a version of the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) that covers the full stratosphere. In Part I, extended-range (3 week) hindcast experiments (without data assimilation) for the January 2009 Arctic major SSW were performed using NOGAPS with a unified orographic drag parameterization that consists of the schemes employed by Webster et al., as well as Kim and Arakawa and Kim and Doyle. Part I demonstrated that the model with upgraded middle-atmospheric orographic drag physics better forecasts the magnitude and evolution of the SSW and better simulates the trend of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) index. In this study (Part II), a series of 5-day hindcast experiments is performed with cycling data assimilation using the Naval Research Laboratory Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System-Accelerated Representer (NAVDAS-AR), a four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR) system. Further efforts are made to improve the hindcasting of SSW by improving the satellite radiance bias correction process that strongly affects the data assimilation. The innovation (observation minus background) limit is optimally determined to reduce the rejection of useful radiance data. It is found that when the innovation limit is properly set, both the analysis and forecast of the SSW event can be improved, and that the orographic drag helps improve the SSW forecast.

Abstract

A sponge layer is formulated to prevent spurious reflection of vertically propagating quasi-stationary gravity waves at the upper boundary of a two-dimensional numerical anelastic nonhydrostatic model. The sponge layer includes damping of both Newtonian-cooling type and Rayleigh-friction type, whose coefficients are determined in such a way that the reflectivity of wave energy at the bottom of the layer is zero. Unlike the formulations in earlier studies, our formulation includes the effects of vertical discretization, vertical mean density variation, and nonhydrostaticity. This sponge formulation is found effective in suppressing false downward reflection of waves for various types of quasi-stationary forcing.

Abstract

The influence of Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies on the atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic sector during winter is investigated by performing experiments with an atmospheric general circulation model. These consist of a 30-yr run with observed SST anomalies for the period 1961–90 confined geographically to the Atlantic Ocean, and of a control run with climatological SSTs prescribed globally. A third 30-yr integration with observed SSTs confined to the South Atlantic is made to confirm present findings.

The simulated interannual variance of 500-hPa wintertime geopotential heights over the North Atlantic attains much more realistic values when observed Atlantic SSTs are prescribed. Circulation patterns that resemble the positive phase of the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) become more pronounced in terms of the leading EOF of winter means, and a cluster analysis of daily fields. The variance of an interannual NAO index increases by fivefold over its control value. Atlantic SST variability is also found to produce an appreciable rectified response in the December–February time mean.

Interannual fluctuations in the simulated NAO are found to be significantly correlated with SST anomalies over the tropical and subtropical South Atlantic. These SST anomalies are accompanied by displacements in the simulated summer monsoonal circulation over South America and the cross-equatorial regional Hadley circulation.

Abstract

This article discusses a practical problem faced in operational atmospheric forecasting and data assimilation, and efforts to improve forecast quality through the choice of quality control parameters. The need to utilize as much data as possible must be carefully balanced against the need to reject observations deemed erroneous because they are far from the background value. Alleviation of forecast bias in the middle atmosphere for a global atmospheric prediction system is attempted via improvement of the quality control and bias correction of the satellite radiance data; in particular, the sensitivity of the analysis to the satellite radiance outlier check parameters for the Naval Research Laboratory’s three-dimensional variational data assimilation system [Naval Research Laboratory Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System (NAVDAS)] is investigated. A series of forecast experiments are performed with an extended-top (0.04 hPa or ∼65 km) version of the U.S. Navy’s Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) for the month of January 2007. The experiments vary the prescribed radiance observation error variance for the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A) and the tolerance factors for the AMSU-A and NAVDAS quality control processes. The biases of geopotential height, temperature, and wind in the middle atmosphere are significantly reduced when the observation error limit for the highest-altitude AMSU-A channel (i.e., 14) is relaxed from 0.95 to 3 K and the tolerance factors for the AMSU-A and NAVDAS quality control processes are relaxed from 3 to 4. The improvement is due to assimilation of more high quality AMSU-A radiance data from the highest-peaking channel.

Abstract

A parameterization of gravity wave drag forced by subgrid-scale cumulus convection (GWDC) proposed by Chun and Baik is implemented into the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate Model (NCAR CCM3) and its effect on perpetual January and July climate is investigated. The cloud-top gravity wave stress is concentrated in the intertropical convergence zone where persistent deep cumulus clouds exist. The resultant zonal wind acceleration due to the breaking of convectively forced gravity waves is predominantly found in the tropical lower stratosphere with westerly acceleration above cloud top and easterly acceleration just below it. Since the parameterized gravity waves are stationary relative to convective clouds, wave breaking occurs mainly in the tropical lower stratosphere where the zonal wind is weak enough for wave saturation. It is shown that the GWDC parameterization significantly alleviates the systematic model biases of zonal-mean zonal wind and temperature. In particular, excessive easterlies in the tropical stratosphere and excessive cold temperatures in the tropical lower stratosphere are reduced by more than 50% by including the GWDC parameterization. The horizontal wind divergence field in the tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere is also significantly improved with the GWDC parameterization.

The impact of the GWDC parameterization extends to mid- to high latitudes through planetary wave activity in the winter hemisphere. The increased amplitude of zonal wavenumber 3 in the January Northern Hemisphere and the increased amplitude of zonal wavenumber 2 in the July Southern Hemisphere lead to significant improvements in model performance. The impact of the GWDC parameterization on Eliassen–Palm (EP) flux divergence forcing by stationary waves is generally opposite to that by transient waves in the extratropics, especially in the Northern Hemisphere wintertime. Hence, the zonal-mean zonal wind change by the GWDC parameterization occurs mainly in the Tropics by direct gravity wave drag forcing.