Evaluation of extratropical cyclone precipitation in the North Atlantic Basin: An analysis of ERA-Interim, WRF, and two CMIP5 models

Details

• Journal Title:
  Journal of Climate
• Personal Author:
  Booth, James F. ; Naud, Catherine M. ; Willison, Jeff
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; CPO (Climate Program Office)
• Description:
  The representation of extratropical cyclone (ETC) precipitation in general circulation models (GCMs) and the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model is analyzed. This work considers the link between ETC precipitation and dynamical strength and tests if parameterized convection affects this link for ETCs in the North Atlantic basin. Lagrangian cyclone tracks of ETCs in ERA-Interim (ERAI), GISS and GFDL CMIP5 models, and WRF with two horizontal resolutions are utilized in a compositing analysis. The 20-km-resolution WRF Model generates stronger ETCs based on surface wind speed and cyclone precipitation. The GCMs and ERAI generate similar composite means and distributions for cyclone precipitation rates, but GCMs generate weaker cyclone surface winds than ERAI. The amount of cyclone precipitation generated by the convection scheme differs significantly across the datasets, with the GISS model generating the most, followed by ERAI and then the GFDL model. The models and reanalysis generate relatively more parameterized convective precipitation when the total cyclone-averaged precipitation is smaller. This is partially due to the contribution of parameterized convective precipitation occurring more often late in the ETC’s life cycle. For reanalysis and models, precipitation increases with both cyclone moisture and surface wind speed, and this is true if the contribution from the parameterized convection scheme is larger or not. This work shows that these different models generate similar total ETC precipitation despite large differences in the parameterized convection, and these differences do not cause unexpected behavior in ETC precipitation sensitivity to cyclone moisture or surface wind speed.
• Source:
  J. Clim. (2018) 31(6): 2345–2360
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0308.1
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA15OAR4310094
• Place as Subject:
  Atlantic Ocean
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/28230/noaa_28230_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.58 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:b625084dd657b85536be11e7bc82cb48ecd569f5bd7e25c3ed2d07777412bea6