IMPROVEMENT OF OCEAN DATA ASSIMILATION SYSTEM AND CLIMATE PREDICTION BY ASSIMILATING ARGO DATA

The Argo(Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography) data from 1998 to 2003 were used in the Beijing Climate Center-Global Ocean Data Assimilation System(BCC-GODAS). The results show that the utilization of Argo global ocean data in BCC-GODAS brings about remarkable improvements in assimilation effects. The assimilated sea surface temperature(SST) of BCC-GODAS can well represent the climatological states of observational data. Comparison experiments based on a global coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model(AOCGM) were conducted for exploring the roles of ocean data assimilation system with or without Argo data in improving the climate predictability of rainfall in boreal summer. Firstly, the global ocean data assimilation system BCC-GODAS was used to obtain ocean assimilation data under the conditions with or without Argo data. Then, the global coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model(AOCGM) was utilized to do hindcast experiments with the two sets of the assimilation data as initial oceanic fields. The simulated results demonstrate that the seasonal predictability of rainfall in boreal summer, particularly in China, increases greatly when initial oceanic conditions with Argo data are utilized. The distribution of summer rainfall in China hindcast by the AOGCM under the condition when Argo data are used is more in accordance with observation than that when no Agro data are used. The area of positive correlation between hindcast and observation enlarges and the hindcast skill of rainfall over China in summer improves significantly when Argo data are used.     

A New Global Four-Dimensional Variational Ocean Data Assimilation System and Its Application

A four-dimensional variational data assimilation （4DVar） system of the LASG/IAP Climate Ocean Model, version 1.0 （LICOM1.0）, named LICOM-3DVM, has been developed using the three-dimensional variational data assimilation of mapped observation （3DVM）, a 4DVar method newly proposed in the past two years. Two experiments with 12-year model integrations were designed to validate it. One is the assimilation run, called ASSM, which incorporated the analyzed weekly sea surface temperature （SST） fields from Reynolds and Smith （OISST） between 1990 and 2001 once a week by the LICOM-3DVM. The other is the control run without any assimilation, named CTL. ASSM shows that the simulated temperatures of the upper ocean （above 50 meters）, especially the SST of equatorial Pacific, coincide with the Tropic Atmosphere Ocean （TAO） mooring data, the World Ocean Atlas 2001 （WOA01） data and the Met Office Hadley Centre＇s sea ice and sea surface temperature （HadISST） data. It decreased the cold bias existing in CTL in the eastern Pacific and produced a Nifio index that agrees with observation well. The validation results suggest that the LICOM-3DVM is able to effectively adjust the model results of the ocean temperature, although it＇s hard to correct the subsurface results and it even makes them worse in some areas due to the incorporation of only surface data. Future development of the LICOM-3DVM is to include subsurface in situ observations and satellite observations to further improve model simulations.     

Variation of the North Equatorial Current,Mindanao Current,and Kuroshio Current in a High-Resolution Data Assimilation during 2008–2012

Outputs from a high-resolution data assimilation system,the global Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model and Navy Coupled Ocean Data Assimilation （HYCOM＋NCODA） 1/12° analysis,were analyzed for the period September 2008 to February 2012.The objectives were to evaluate the performance of the system in simulating ocean circulation in the tropical northwestern Pacific and to examine the seasonal to interannual variations of the western boundary currents.The HYCOM assimilation compares well with altimetry observations and mooring current measurements.The mean structures and standard deviations of velocities of the North Equatorial Current （NEC）,Mindanao Current （MC） and Kuroshio Current （KC） also compare well with previous observations.Seasonal to interannual variations of the NEC transport volume are closely correlated with the MC transport volume,instead of that of the KC.The NEC and MC transport volumes mainly show well-defined annual cycles,with their maxima in spring and minima in fall,and are closely related to the circulation changes in the Mindanao Dome （MD） region.In seasons of transport maxima,the MD region experiences negative SSH anomalies and a cyclonic gyre anomaly,and in seasons of transport minima the situation is reversed.The sea surface NEC bifurcation latitude （NBL） in the HYCOM assimilation also agrees well with altimetry observations.In 2009,the NBL shows an annual cycle similar to previous studies,reaching its southernmost position in summer and its northernmost position in winter.In 2010 and 2011,the NBL variations are dominantly influenced by La Ni（n）a events.The dynamics responsible for the seasonal to interannual variations of the NEC-MC-KC current system are also discussed.     

Time-Expanded Sampling for Ensemble-Based Filters: Assimilation Experiments with Real Radar Observations

By sampling perturbed state vectors from each ensemble prediction run at properly selected time levels in the vicinity of the analysis time, the recently proposed time-expanded sampling approach can enlarge the ensemble size without increasing the number of prediction runs and, hence, can reduce the computational cost of an ensemble-based filter. In this study, this approach is tested for the first time with real radar data from a tornadic thunderstorm. In particular, four assimilation experiments were performed to test the time-expanded sampling method against the conventional ensemble sampling method used by ensemble- based filters. In these experiments, the ensemble square-root filter (EnSRF) was used with 45 ensemble members generated by the time-expanded sampling and conventional sampling from 15 and 45 prediction runs, respectively, and quality-controlled radar data were compressed into super-observations with properly reduced spatial resolutions to improve the EnSRF performances. The results show that the time-expanded sampling approach not only can reduce the computational cost but also can improve the accuracy of the analysis, especially when the ensemble size is severely limited due to computational constraints for real-radar data assimilation. These potential merits are consistent with those previously demonstrated by assimilation experiments with simulated data.     

Preliminary evaluations of FGOALS-g2 for decadal predictions

The Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model, Grid-point Version 2 (FGOALS-g2) for decadal predictions, is evaluated preliminarily, based on sets of ensemble 10-year hindcasts that it has produced. The results show that the hindcasts were more accurate in decadal variability of SST and surface air temperature (SAT), particularly in that of Nin o3.4 SST and China regional SAT, than the second sample of the historical runs for 20th-century climate (the control) by the same model. Both the control and the hindcasts represented the global warming well using the same external forcings, but the control overestimated the warming. The hindcasts produced the warming closer to the observations. Performance of FGOALS-g2 in hindcasts benefits from more realistic initial conditions provided by the initialization run and a smaller model bias resulting from the use of a dynamic bias correction scheme newly developed in this study. The initialization consists of a 61-year nudging-based assimilation cycle, which follows on the control run on 01 January 1945 with the incorporation of observation data of upper-ocean temperature and salinity at each integration step in the ocean component model, the LASG IAP Climate System Ocean Model, Version 2 (LICOM2). The dynamic bias correction is implemented at each step of LICOM2 during the hindcasts to reduce the systematic biases existing in upper-ocean temperature and salinity by incorporating multi-year monthly mean increments produced in the assimilation cycle. The effectiveness of the assimilation cycle and the role of the correction scheme were assessed prior to the hindcasts.     

Impacts of XBT, TAO, Altimetry and ARGO Observations on the Tropical Pacific Ocean Data Assimilation

This study aims at assessing the relative impacts of four major components of the tropical Pacific Ocean observing system on assimilation of temperature and salinity fields. Observations were collected over a period between January 2001 through June 2003 including temperature data from the expendable bathythermographs （XBT）, thermistor data from the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean （TOGA-TAO） mooring array, sea level anomalies from the Topex/Poseidon and Jason-1 altimetry （T/P-J）, and temperature and salinity profiles from the Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography （ARGO） floats. An efficient three-dimensional variational analysis-based method was introduced to assimilate the above data into the tropical-Pacific circulation model. To evaluate the impact of the individual component of the observing system, four observation system experiments were carried out. The experiment that assimilated all four components of the observing system was taken as the reference. The other three experiments were implemented by withholding one of the four components. Results show that the spatial distribution of the data influences its relative contribution. XBT observations produce the most distinguished effects on temperature analyses in the off-equatorial region due to the large amount of measurements and high quality. Similarly, the impact of TAO is dominant in the equatorial region due to the focus of the spatial distribution. The Topex/Poseidon-Jason-1 can be highly complementary where the XBT and TAO observations are sparse. The contribution of XBT or TAO on the assimilated salinity is made by the model dynamics because no salinity observations from them are assimilated. Therefore, T/P-J, as a main source for providing salinity data, has been shown to have greater impacts than either XBT or TAO on the salinity analysis. Although ARGO includes the subsurface observations, the relatively smaller number of observation makes it have the smallest contribution to the assimilation syst     

Study on the Variational Assimilation Technique for the Retrieval of Wind Fields from Doppler Radar Data

This paper introduces a variational assimilation technique for the retrieval of wind fields from Doppler radar data. The assimilated information included both the radial velocity (RV) and the movement of radar echo. In this assimilation technique, the key is transforming the movement of radar echo to a new radar measuring variable- "apparent velocity" (AV). Thus, the information of wind is added, and the indeterminacy of recovering two-dimensional wind only by AV was overcome effectively by combining RV with AV. By means of CMA GRAPES-3Dvar and CINRAD data, some experiments were performed. The results show that the method of retrieval of wind fields is useful in obtaining the construction of the weather system.     

Effects of meridional sea surface temperature changes on stratospheric temperature and circulation

Using a state-of-the-art chemistry-climate model,we analyzed the atmospheric responses to increases in sea surface temperature （SST）.The results showed that increases in SST and the SST meridional gradient could intensify the subtropical westerly jets and significantly weaken the northern polar vortex.In the model runs,global uniform SST increases produced a more significant impact on the southern stratosphere than the northern stratosphere,while SST gradient increases produced a more significant impact on the northern stratosphere.The asymmetric responses of the northern and southern polar stratosphere to SST meridional gradient changes were found to be mainly due to different wave properties and transmissions in the northern and southern atmosphere.Although SST increases may give rise to stronger waves,the results showed that the effect of SST increases on the vertical propagation of tropospheric waves into the stratosphere will vary with height and latitude and be sensitive to SST meridional gradient changes.Both uniform and non-uniform SST increases accelerated the large-scale Brewer-Dobson circulation （BDC）,but the gradient increases of SST between 60°S and 60°N resulted in younger mean age-of-air in the stratosphere and a larger increase in tropical upwelling,with a much higher tropopause than from a global uniform 1.0 K SST increase.     

Analyses and forecasts of a tornadic supercell outbreak using a 3DVAR system ensemble

As part of NOAA’s "Warn-On-Forecast" initiative, a convective-scale data assimilation and prediction system was developed using the WRF-ARW model and ARPS 3DVAR data assimilation technique. The system was then evaluated using retrospective short-range ensemble analyses and probabilistic forecasts of the tornadic supercell outbreak event that occurred on 24 May 2011 in Oklahoma, USA. A 36-member multi-physics ensemble system provided the initial and boundary conditions for a 3-km convective-scale ensemble system. Radial velocity and reflectivity observations from four WSR-88 Ds were assimilated into the ensemble using the ARPS 3DVAR technique. Five data assimilation and forecast experiments were conducted to evaluate the sensitivity of the system to data assimilation frequencies, in-cloud temperature adjustment schemes, and fixed- and mixed-microphysics ensembles. The results indicated that the experiment with 5-min assimilation frequency quickly built up the storm and produced a more accurate analysis compared with the 10-min assimilation frequency experiment. The predicted vertical vorticity from the moist-adiabatic in-cloud temperature adjustment scheme was larger in magnitude than that from the latent heat scheme. Cycled data assimilation yielded good forecasts, where the ensemble probability of high vertical vorticity matched reasonably well with the observed tornado damage path. Overall, the results of the study suggest that the 3DVAR analysis and forecast system can provide reasonable forecasts of tornadic supercell storms.     

奥运气象资料管理系统中SCRUM方法应用

引言 软件质量和生产率是软件工程的两个核心目标。敏捷软件开发方法（以下简称敏捷方法）统称轻载方法,以区别于传统的软件开发方法（又称重载方法）。目前常见的敏捷方法有Extreme Program—ming（简称XP）、SCRUM、Crystal、Adaptive Software Development（ASD）,     

Antarctic Radiosonde Observations Reduce Uncertainties and Errors in Reanalyses and Forecasts over the Southern Ocean:An Extreme Cyclone Case

Cyclones with strong winds can make the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic a dangerous environment.Accurate weather forecasts are essential for safe shipping in the Southern Ocean and observational and logistical operations at Antarctic research stations.This study investigated the impact of additional radiosonde observations from Research Vessel"Shirase"over the Southern Ocean and Dome Fuji Station in Antarctica on reanalysis data and forecast experiments using an ensemble data assimilation system comprising the Atmospheric General Circulation Model for the Earth Simulator and the Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter Experimental Ensemble Reanalysis,version 2.A 63-member ensemble forecast experiment was conducted focusing on an unusually strong Antarctic cyclonic event.Reanalysis data with(observing system experiment)and without(control)additional radiosonde data were used as initial values.The observing system experiment correctly captured the central pressure of the cyclone,which led to the reliable prediction of the strong winds and moisture transport near the coast.Conversely,the control experiment predicted lower wind speeds because it failed to forecast the central pressure of the cyclone adequately.Differences were found in cyclone predictions of operational forecast systems with and without assimilation of radiosonde observations from Dome Fuji Station.     

Effects of the Physical Process Ensemble Technique on Simulation of Summer Precipitation over China

The effects of the physical process ensemble technique on simulation of summer precipitation over China have been studied by using a p-σregional climate model with 9 vertical levels（pσ-RCM9）.The results show that there are obvious differences among simulations of summer precipitation over China from different individual ensemble members.The simulated precipitation over China is sensitive to different cumulus convection,radiative transfer,and land surface process parameterizations.These differences lead to large uncertainties in the simulation results.The standard deviation of the simulated summer precipitation departure percentage over West China is larger than that over East China,signifying that the simulated precipitation over East China has higher reliability and consistency than that over West China.The Talagr and diagram shows that the ensemble system has reasonable dispersion in the simulated summer mean precipitation over East China.The summer ensemble mean precipitation over East China evaluated by various indices is better than most single simulations.The physical process ensemble technique reduces the uncertainties of the model physics in precipitation and improves the simulation results as a whole.Further, adopting the optimized ensemble mean method can obviously improve the performance of the pσ-RCM9 model in simulation of summer precipitation over East China.     

时间扩展取样集合卡尔曼滤波同化模拟探空试验研究

目前,集合卡尔曼滤波同化预报循环系统主要的计算量和时间都花费在样本成员的预报上,小样本数虽能减少计算量,但样本数过少,特别是当有模式误差时,又会导致滤波发散。为了提高集合卡尔曼滤波同化预报循环系统的效率并减轻滤波发散等问题,开展了基于WRF的时间扩展取样集合卡尔曼滤波同化模拟探空的试验研究,以考察其在中尺度模式中的同化效果。预报时对一组样本数为Nb的样本,不仅在分析时刻取样,同时也在分析时刻前和后每间隔Δt时间进行M次取样,即在没增加预报样本数的情况下,增加了分析样本成员数(Nb+2M×Nb),从而在保证不降低分析精度的前提下,也达到减小集合卡尔曼滤波的计算量的要求。通过一系列试验来检验时间扩展取样的时间间隔Δt及在分析时刻前和后最大取样次数M对同化结果的影响。试验结果表明,当选择合适的Δt和M时,时间扩展集合卡尔曼滤波的同化效果非常接近于样本数为(1+2M)×Nb的传统集合卡尔曼滤波效果,具有一定的可行性。     

1961-200年中国各季降水趋势变化

Trends in six indices of precipitation in China for seasons during 1961-2007 were analyzed based on daily observations at 587 stations. The trends were estimated by using Sen＇s method with Mann-Kendall＇s test for quantifying the significance. The geographical patterns of trends in the seasonal indices of extremes were similar to those of total precipitation. For winter, both total and extreme precipitation increased over nearly all of China, except for a small part of northern China. Increasing trends in extreme precipitation also occurred at many stations in southwestern China for spring and the midlower reaches of the Yangtze River and southern China for summer. For autumn, precipitation decreased in eastern China, with an increasing length of maximum dry spell, implying a drying tendency for the post-rainy season. Wetting trends have prevailed in most of western China for all seasons. The well-known ＇flood in the south and drought in the north＇ trend exists in eastern China for summer, while a nearly opposite trend pattern exist for spring.     

Tides and Wind-Driven Circulation in the Tropical and Southern Atlantic Ocean:The BRAZCOAST System

The Brazilian coast is characterized by dif- ferent tidal regimes and distinct meteorological influ- ences. The northern part has larger tidal amplitudes and is permanently affected by trade winds and tropical distur- bances; the southern portion has smaller tidal amplitudes and is frequently influenced by extratropical cyclone ac- tivity. Besides these aspects, many features regarding current structure and behavior are also present, such as the equatorial system of currents, the subtropical gyre and the corresponding western boundary currents, and the Bra- zil-Malvinas confluence region. Within this context, ef- forts were made to develop the BRAZCOAST system, capable of describing the processes that determine the oceanic circulation from large to coastal scales. A cus- tomized version of the Princeton Ocean Model （POM） was implemented in a basin-scale domain covering the whole of the tropical and southern Atlantic Ocean, with 0.5° spatial resolution, as well as three nested grids with （1/12）° resolution covering the different parts of the Bra- zilian shelf, in a one-way procedure. POM was modified to include tidal potential generator terms and a par- tially-clamped boundary condition for tidal elevations. The coarse grid captured large-scale features, while the nested grids detailed local circulations affected by bathymetry and coastal restrictions. An interesting aspect at the coarse grid level was the relevance of the Weddell Sea to the location of the tidal amphidromic systems.     

AAS has been accepted for Coverage by the Science Citation Index in 2009

In May 2008, ScienceWatch.com named Advances in Atmospheric Sciences a Rising Star among Geosciences journals. According to Essential Science IndicatorsSM from Thomson Reuters, the journal＇s cur-rent citation record includes 764 papers cited a total of 1,658 times between January 1, 1998 and February 29 2008.     

Integration of Multi-source Measurements to Monitor Dust over North China：A Case Study

The aerosol optical depth （AOD） data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer （MODIS） aboard Satellite Aqua, along with the altitude-resolved aerosol subtypes product from the Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization （CALIOP）, as well as surface PM 10 measurements, were utilized to investigate the dust activities common in springtime of northern China. Specifically, a dust storm episode that occurred over the North China Plain （NCP） during 17-21 March 2010 was identified. The PM 10 concentration at Beijing （39.8 °N, 116.47 °E） reached the peak value of 283 μgm -3 on 20 March 2010 from the background value of 15 μg m-3 measured on 17 March 2010, then dropped to 176 μgm-3 on 21 March 2010. Analysis of the CALIOP aerosol subtypes product showed that numerous large dust plumes floated over northern China, downwind of main desert source regions, and were lifted to altitudes as high as 3.5 km during this time period. The MODIS AOD data provided spatial distributions of dust load, broadly consistent with ground-level PM 10 , especially in cloud free areas. However, inconsistency between the MODIS AOD and surface PM 10 measurements under cloudy conditions did exist, further highlighting the unique capability of the CALIOP lidar. CALIOP can penetrate the cloud layer to give unambiguous and altitude-resolved dust measurements, albeit a relatively long revisit period （16 days） and narrower swath （90 m）. A back trajectory simulation using the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory （HYSPLIT） model was performed, and it was found that the sand-dust storm originated from the Gobi Desert on 18 March 2010 travelled approxi-mately 1200-1500 km day-1 eastward and passed over the NCP on 19 March 2010, in good agreement with previous findings. In addition, the multi-sensor measurements integrated with the HYSPLIT model output formed a three-dimensional view of the transport pathway for this dust episode, indicating that this episode was largely associated with the desert source regions to the northwest of the NCP. The results imply the importance of integration of multi-sensor measurements for clarifying the overall structure of dust events over northern China.     

MM5 Simulations of the China Regional Climate During the LGM. Ⅱ： Influence of Change of Land Area,Vegetation, and Large-scale Circulation Background

Using a regional climate model MM5 nested to an atmospheric global climate model CCM3, a series of simulations and sensitivity experiments have been performed to investigate the relative LGM climate response to changes of land-sea distribution, vegetation, and large-scale circulation background over China. Model results show that compared with the present climate, the fluctuations of sea-land distribution in eastern Asia during the LGM result in the temperature decrease in winter and increase in summer. It has significant impact on the temperature and precipitation in the east coastal region of China. The impact on precipitation in the east coastal region of China is the most significant one, with 25%-50% decrease in the total precipitation change during the LGM. On the other hand, the changes in sea-land distribution have less influence on the climate of inland and western part of China. During the LGM, significant changes in vegetation result in temperature alternating with winter increase and summer decrease, but differences in the annual mean temperature are minor. During the LGM, the global climate, i.e., the large-scale circulation background has changed significantly. These changes have significant influences on temperature and precipitation over China. They result in considerable temperature decreases in this area, and direct the primary patterns and characteristics of temperature changes. Results display that, northeastern China has the greatest temperature decrease, and the temperature decrease in the Tibetan Plateau is larger than in the eastern part of China located at the same latitude. Moreover, the change of large-scale circulation background also controls the pattern of precipitation change. Results also show that, most of the changes in precipitation over western and northeastern parts of China are the consequences of changing large-scale circulation background, of which 50%-75% of precipitation changes over northern and eastern China are the results of changes in large-scale circulation backgrou     

Analysis of Nonstationary Wind Fluctuations Using the Hilbert-Huang Transform

Climatological patterns in wind fluctuations on time scales of 1-10 h are analyzed at a meteorological mast at the Yangmeishan wind farm, Yunnan Province, China, using a 2-yr time series of 10-min wind speed ob- servations. For analyzing the spectral properties of non- stationary wind fluctuations in mountain terrain, the Hil- bert-Huang transform （HHT） is applied to investigate climatological patterns between wind variability and sev- eral variables including time of year, time of day, wind direction, and pressure tendency. Compared with that for offshore sites, the wind variability at Yangmeishan wind farm has a more distinct diurnal cycle, but the seasonal discrepancies and the differences according to directions are not distinct, and the synoptic influences on wind vari- ability are weaker. There is enhanced variability in spring and winter compared with summer and autumn. For flow from the main direction sector, the maximum wind vari- ability is observed in spring. And the severe wind fluctua- tions are more common when the pressure tendency is rising.