Scale interactions on diurnal toseasonal timescales and their relevanceto model systematic errors

By J. Slingo, P. Inness, Richard B. Neale, S. Woolnough, Gui‐Ying Yang. 2003

133 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Examples of current research into systematic errors in climate models are used to demonstrate the importance of scale interactions on diurnal,intraseasonal and seasonal timescales for the mean and variability of the tropical climate system. It has enabled some conclusions to be drawn about possible processes that may need to be represented, and some recommendations to be made regarding model improvements. It has been shown that the Maritime Continent heat source is a major driver of the global circulation but yet is poorly represented in GCMs. A new climatology of the diurnal cycle has been used to provide compelling evidence of important land-sea breeze and gravity wave effects, which may play a crucial role in the heat and moisture budget of this key region for the tropical and global circulation. The role of the diurnal cycle has also been emphasized for intraseasonal variability associated with the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO). It is suggested that the diurnal cycle in Sea Surface Temperature (SST) during the suppressed phase of the MJO leads to a triggering of cumulus congestus clouds, which serve to moisten the free troposphere and hence precondition the atmosphere for the next active phase. It has been further shown that coupling between the ocean and atmosphere on intraseasonal timescales leads to a more realistic simulation of the MJO. These results stress the need for models to be able to simulate firstly, the observed tri-modal distribution of convection, and secondly, the coupling between the ocean and atmosphere on diurnal to intraseasonal timescales. It is argued, however, that the current representation of the ocean mixed layer in coupled models is not adequate to represent the complex structure of the observed mixed layer, in particular the formation of salinity barrier layers which can potentially provide much stronger local coupling between the atmosphere and ocean on diurnal to intraseasonal timescales.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1cb57746d44365841c839365aa512c664f79efd1

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atmospheric Science

1. E. Maloney
2. Chidong Zhang
3. Á. Adames
4. C. DeMott
5. Daehyun Kim
6. N. Klingaman
7. Hai Lin
8. Xianan Jiang

In Global and Planetary Change

1. E. Maloney
2. Chidong Zhang
3. Á. Adames
4. C. DeMott
5. Daehyun Kim
6. N. Klingaman
7. Hai Lin
8. Xianan Jiang

Citations in the corpus

• The diurnal cycle of precipitation over the Maritime Continent in a high‐resolution atmospheric model (2011, background): “Hence, the lack of such processes in these models has been pinpointed as one of the major sources of error in their simulations (Yang and Slingo, 2001; Slingo et al., 2003).”
• Madden‐Julian Oscillation (2005, background): “These midlevel clouds undergo a strong diurnal cycle, which may be related to the diurnal cycle in SST [Slingo et al., 2003].”
• Simulation of the Madden–Julian Oscillation in a Coupled General Circulation Model. Part I: Comparison with Observations and an Atmosphere-Only GCM (2003, methodology): “In part II (Inness et al. 2003) of this paper we will investigate this question further by performing an experiment in which we modify the climatology of the GCM in the tropical Pacific in order to produce a basic state with low-level westerly winds in the west Pacific.”
• A New Multiscale Model for the MaddenJulian Oscillation (2005, background): “Both of these processes are important for the potential capability of GCMs in capturing the MJO (Inness et al. 2001; Slingo et al. 2003).”
• Developing the next-generation climate system models: challenges and achievements (2009, background): “…of the climate system, in which smallscale, high-frequency (hours to days) variations appear to play a key role in determining the large-scale, low-frequency (months to years) evolution of the physical climate system (e.g. Slingo et al. 2003; Lengaigne et al. 2004), especially in the tropics.”
• Fifty Years of Research on the Madden‐Julian Oscillation: Recent Progress, Challenges, and Perspectives (2020, background): “…Cycle It has been hypothesized that reduced MJO amplitude over the MC region could result from a competition for moist energy between the diurnal cycle of convection and low‐frequency variability (e.g., Neale & Slingo, 2003; Oh et al., 2012, 2013; B. Wang & Li, 1994; C. Zhang & Hendon, 1997).”