Non-linear climate feedback analysis in an atmospheric general circulation model

 A method is described for evaluating the ‘partial derivatives’ of globally averaged top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation changes with respect to basic climate model physical parameters. This method is used to analyse feedbacks in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre general circulation model. The parameters considered are surface temperature, water vapour, lapse rate and cloud cover. The climate forcing which produces the changes is a globally uniform sea surface temperature (SST) perturbation. The first and second order differentials of model parameters with respect to the forcing (i.e. SST changes) are estimated from quadratic least square fitting. Except for total cloud cover, variables are found to be strong functions of global SST. Strongly non-linear variations of lapse rate and high cloud amount and height appear to relate to the non-linear response in penetrative convection. Globally averaged TOA radiation differentials with respect to model parameters are also evaluated. With the exception of total cloud contributions, a high correlation is generally found to exist, on the global mean level, between TOA radiation and the respective parameter perturbations. The largest non-linear terms contributing to radiative changes are those due to lapse rate and high cloud. The contributions of linear and non-linear terms to the overall radiative response from a 4 K SST perturbation are assessed. Significant non-linear responses are found to be associated with lapse rate, water vapour and cloud changes. Although the exact magnitude of these responses is likely to be a function of the particular model as well as the imposed SST perturbation pattern, the present experiments flag these as processes which cannot properly be understood from linear theory in the evaluation of climate change sensitivity. Received: 16 January 1997/Accepted: 9 May 1997     

Tropical cooling and the isotopic composition of precipitation in general circulation model simulations of the ice age climate

 We test the climate effects of changes in the tropical ocean by imposing three different patterns of tropical SSTs in ice age general circulation model simulations that include water source tracers and water isotope tracers. The continental air temperature and hydrological cycle response in these simulations is substantial and should be directly comparable to the paleoclimatic record. With tropical cooling imposed, there is a strong temperature response in mid- to high-latitudes resulting from changes in sea ice and disturbance of the planetary waves; the results suggest that tropical/subtropical ocean cooling leads to significant dynamical and radiative feedbacks that might amplify ice age cycles. The isotopes in precipitation generally follow the temperature response at higher latitudes, but regional δ¹⁸O/air temperature scaling factors differ greatly among the experiments. In low-latitudes, continental surface temperatures decrease congruently with the adjacent SSTs in the cooling experiments. Assuming CLIMAP SSTs, ¹⁸O/¹⁶O ratios in low-latitude precipitation show no change from modern values. However, the experiments with additional cooling of SSTs produce much lower tropical continental δ¹⁸O values, and these low values result primarily from an enhanced recycling of continental moisture (as marine evaporation is reduced). The water isotopes are especially sensitive to continental aridity, suggesting that they represent an effective tracer of the extent of tropical cooling and drying. Only one of the tropical cooling simulations produces generalized low-latitude aridity. These results demonstrate that the geographic pattern of cooling is most critical for promoting much drier continents, and they underscore the need for accurate reconstructions of SST gradients in the ice age ocean. Received: 26 July 1999 / Accepted: 10 July 2000     

Stratospheric climate and variability from a general circulation model and observations

The climate and natural variability of the large-scale stratospheric circulation simulated by a newly developed general circulation model are evaluated against available global observations. The simulation consisted of a 30-year annual cycle integration performed with a comprehensive model of the troposphere and stratosphere. The observations consisted of a 15-year dataset from global operational analyses of the troposphere and stratosphere. The model evaluation concentrates on the simulation of the evolution of the extratropical stratospheric circulation in both hemispheres. The December–February climatology of the observed zonal mean winter circulation is found to be reasonably well captured by the model, although in the Northern Hemisphere upper stratosphere the simulated westerly winds are systematically stronger and a cold bias is apparent in the polar stratosphere. This Northern Hemisphere stratospheric cold bias virtually disappears during spring (March–May), consistent with a realistic simulation of the spring weakening of the mean westerly winds in the model. A considerable amount of monthly interannual variability is also found in the simulation in the Northern Hemisphere in late winter and early spring. The simulated interannual variability is predominantly caused by polar warmings of the stratosphere, in agreement with observations. The breakdown of the Northern Hemisphere stratospheric polar vortex appears therefore to occur in a realistic way in the model. However, in early winter the model severely underestimates the interannual variability, especially in the upper troposphere. The Southern Hemisphere winter (June–August) zonal mean temperature is systematically colder in the model, and the simulated winds are somewhat too strong in the upper stratosphere. Contrary to the results for the Northern Hemisphere spring, this model cold bias worsens during the Southern Hemisphere spring (September–November). Significant discrepancies between the model results and the observations are therefore found during the breakdown of the Southern Hemisphere polar vortex. For instance, the simulated Southern Hemisphere stratosphere westerly jet continuously decreases in intensity more or less in situ from June to November, while the observed stratospheric jet moves downward and poleward.This paper was presented at the Third International Conference on Modelling of Global Climate Change and Variability, held in Hamburg 4–8 Sept. 1995 under the auspice of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg. Editor for these papers is L. Dümenil.     

Downscaling of general circulation model outputs: simulation of the snow climatology of the French Alps and sensitivity to climate change

A downscaling method was developed to simulate the seasonal snow cover of the French Alps from general circulation model outputs under various scenarios. It consists of an analogue procedure, which associates a real meteorological situation to a model output. It is based on the comparison between simulated upper air fields and meteorological analyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. The selection uses a nearest neighbour method at a daily time-step. In a second phase, the snow cover is simulated by the snow model CROCUS at several elevations and in the different regions of the French Alps by using data from the real meteorological situations. The method is tested with real data and applied to various ARPEGE/Climat simulations: the present climate and two climate change scenarios. Received: 26 September 1995 / Accepted: 7 August 1996     

Future climate of the Caribbean from a super-high-resolution atmospheric general circulation model

Present-day (1979–2003) and future (2075–2099) simulations of mean and extreme rainfall and temperature are examined using data from the Meteorological Research Institute super-high-resolution atmospheric general circulation model. Analyses are performed over the 20-km model grid for (1) a main Caribbean basin, (2) sub-regional zones, and (3) specific Caribbean islands. Though the model’s topography underestimates heights over the eastern Caribbean, it captures well the present-day spatial and temporal variations of seasonal and annual climates. Temperature underestimations range from 0.1 °C to 2 °C with respect to the Japanese Reanalysis and the Climatic Research Unit datasets. The model also captures fairly well sub-regional scale variations in the rainfall climatology. End-of-century projections under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change SRES A1B scenario indicate declines in rainfall amounts by 10–20 % for most of the Caribbean during the early (May–July) and late (August–October) rainy seasons relative to the 1979–2003 baselines. The early dry season (November–January) is also projected to get wetter in the far north and south Caribbean by approximately 10 %. The model also projects a warming of 2–3 °C over the Caribbean region. Analysis of future climate extremes indicate a 5–10 % decrease in the simple daily precipitation intensity but no significant change in the number of consecutive dry days for Cuba, Jamaica, southern Bahamas, and Haiti. There is also indication that the number of hot days and nights will significantly increase over the main Caribbean basin.     

The general circulation model precipitation bias over the southwestern equatorial Indian Ocean and its implications for simulating the South Asian monsoon

Most of current general circulation models (GCMs) show a remarkable positive precipitation bias over the southwestern equatorial Indian Ocean (SWEIO), which can be thought of as a westward expansion of the simulated IO convergence zone toward the coast of Africa. The bias is common to both coupled and uncoupled models, suggesting that its origin does not stem from the way boundary conditions are specified. The spatio-temporal evolution of the precipitation and associated three-dimensional atmospheric circulation biases is comprehensively characterized by comparing the GFDL AM3 atmospheric model to observations. It is shown that the oceanic bias, which develops in spring and reduces during the monsoon season, is associated to a consistent precipitation and circulation anomalous pattern over the whole Indian region. In the vertical, the areas are linked by an anomalous Hadley-type meridional circulation, whose northern branch subsides over northeastern India significantly affecting the monsoon evolution (e.g., delaying its onset). This study makes the case that the precipitation bias over the SWEIO is forced by the model excess response to the local meridional sea surface temperature (SST) gradient through enhanced near-surface meridional wind convergence. This is suggested by observational evidence and supported by AM3 sensitivity experiments. The latter show that relaxing the magnitude of the meridional SST gradient in the SWEIO can lead to a significant reduction of both local and large-scale precipitation and circulation biases. The ability of local anomalies over the SWEIO to force a large-scale remote response to the north is further supported by numerical experiments with the GFDL spectral dry dynamical core model. By imposing a realistic anomalous heating source over the SWEIO the model is able to reproduce the main dynamical features of the AM3 bias. These results indicate that improved GCM simulations of the South Asian summer monsoon could be achieved by reducing the springtime model bias over the SWEIO. Deficiencies in the atmospheric model, and in particular in the convective parameterization, are suggested to play a key role. Finally, the important mechanism controlling the simulated precipitation distribution over South Asia found here should be considered in the interpretation and attribution of regional precipitation variation under climate change.     

An examination of climate sensitivity for idealised climate change experiments in an intermediate general circulation model

Radiative forcing and climate sensitivity have been widely used as concepts to understand climate change. This work performs climate change experiments with an intermediate general circulation model (IGCM) to examine the robustness of the radiative forcing concept for carbon dioxide and solar constant changes. This IGCM has been specifically developed as a computationally fast model, but one that allows an interaction between physical processes and large-scale dynamics; the model allows many long integrations to be performed relatively quickly. It employs a fast and accurate radiative transfer scheme, as well as simple convection and surface schemes, and a slab ocean, to model the effects of climate change mechanisms on the atmospheric temperatures and dynamics with a reasonable degree of complexity. The climatology of the IGCM run at T-21 resolution with 22 levels is compared to European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting Reanalysis data. The response of the model to changes in carbon dioxide and solar output are examined when these changes are applied globally and when constrained geographically (e.g. over land only). The CO₂ experiments have a roughly 17% higher climate sensitivity than the solar experiments. It is also found that a forcing at high latitudes causes a 40% higher climate sensitivity than a forcing only applied at low latitudes. It is found that, despite differences in the model feedbacks, climate sensitivity is roughly constant over a range of distributions of CO₂ and solar forcings. Hence, in the IGCM at least, the radiative forcing concept is capable of predicting global surface temperature changes to within 30%, for the perturbations described here. It is concluded that radiative forcing remains a useful tool for assessing the natural and anthropogenic impact of climate change mechanisms on surface temperature.     

Downscaling daily precipitation over the Yellow River source region in China: a comparison of three statistical downscaling methods

Three statistical downscaling methods are compared with regard to their ability to downscale summer (June–September) daily precipitation at a network of 14 stations over the Yellow River source region from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data with the aim of constructing high-resolution regional precipitation scenarios for impact studies. The methods used are the Statistical Downscaling Model (SDSM), the Generalized LInear Model for daily CLIMate (GLIMCLIM), and the non-homogeneous Hidden Markov Model (NHMM). The methods are compared in terms of several statistics including spatial dependence, wet- and dry spell length distributions and inter-annual variability. In comparison with other two models, NHMM shows better performance in reproducing the spatial correlation structure, inter-annual variability and magnitude of the observed precipitation. However, it shows difficulty in reproducing observed wet- and dry spell length distributions at some stations. SDSM and GLIMCLIM showed better performance in reproducing the temporal dependence than NHMM. These models are also applied to derive future scenarios for six precipitation indices for the period 2046–2065 using the predictors from two global climate models (GCMs; CGCM3 and ECHAM5) under the IPCC SRES A2, A1B and B1scenarios. There is a strong consensus among two GCMs, three downscaling methods and three emission scenarios in the precipitation change signal. Under the future climate scenarios considered, all parts of the study region would experience increases in rainfall totals and extremes that are statistically significant at most stations. The magnitude of the projected changes is more intense for the SDSM than for other two models, which indicates that climate projection based on results from only one downscaling method should be interpreted with caution. The increase in the magnitude of rainfall totals and extremes is also accompanied by an increase in their inter-annual variability.     

Ocean-atmosphere interactions and climate drift in a coupled general circulation model

 We have analysed numerical simulations performed with a global 3D coupled atmosphere-ocean model to focus on the role of atmospheric processes leading to sea surface temperature (SST) drift in the tropics. Negative SST errors occur coherently in space and time with large positive errors in latent heat and momentum fluxes at the tropical air-sea interface, as diagnosed from forced SST simulations. The warm pool in the western Pacific disappears after a few years of simulation. Strong SST gradients enforce regions of high precipitation that are thin and stationary north of the equator. We detail the implications for the ocean-atmosphere system of such upheaval in the deep convection location. A sensitivity experiment to empirically formulate air-sea drag coefficient shows that the rapid warm pool erosion is not sensitive to changes in the formulation of the surface drag coefficient over the oceans because the corresponding changes in turbulent heat fluxes and LW cooling approximately cancel one another. In the eastern Pacific, the improvement in SST is striking and caused by feedbacks between SST, surface turbulent fluxes and boundary layer cloud fraction, which decreases as SST warms. Received: 8 December 1998 / Accepted: 6 January 2000     

Uncertainty analysis of statistical downscaling models using general circulation model over an international wetland

Regression-based statistical downscaling model (SDSM) is an appropriate method which broadly uses to resolve the coarse spatial resolution of general circulation models (GCMs). Nevertheless, the assessment of uncertainty propagation linked with climatic variables is essential to any climate change impact study. This study presents a procedure to characterize uncertainty analysis of two GCM models link with Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG) and SDSM in one of the most vulnerable international wetland, namely “Shadegan” in an arid region of Southwest Iran. In the case of daily temperature, uncertainty is estimated by comparing monthly mean and variance of downscaled and observed daily data at a 95 % confidence level. Uncertainties were then evaluated from comparing monthly mean dry and wet spell lengths and their 95 % CI in daily precipitation downscaling using 1987–2005 interval. The uncertainty results indicated that the LARS-WG is the most proficient model at reproducing various statistical characteristics of observed data at a 95 % uncertainty bounds while the SDSM model is the least capable in this respect. The results indicated a sequences uncertainty analysis at three different climate stations and produce significantly different climate change responses at 95 % CI. Finally the range of plausible climate change projections suggested a need for the decision makers to augment their long-term wetland management plans to reduce its vulnerability to climate change impacts.     

Simulating tropical instability waves in the equatorial eastern Pacific with a coupled general circulation model

Satellite observations of SSTs have revealed the existence of unstable waves in the equatorial eastern Pacific and Atlantic oceans. These waves have a 20-40-day periodicity with westward phase speeds of 0.4-0.6 m s-1 and wavelengths of 1000-2000 km during boreal summer and fall. They are generally called tropical instability waves (TIWs). This study investigates TIWs simulated by a high-resolution coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM). The horizontal resolution of the model is 120 km in...     

The sensitivity of the tropical circulation and Maritime Continent precipitation to climate model resolution

The dependence of the annual mean tropical precipitation on horizontal resolution is investigated in the atmospheric version of the Hadley Centre General Environment Model. Reducing the grid spacing from about 350 km to about 110 km improves the precipitation distribution in most of the tropics. In particular, characteristic dry biases over South and Southeast Asia including the Maritime Continent as well as wet biases over the western tropical oceans are reduced. The annual-mean precipitation bias is reduced by about one third over the Maritime Continent and the neighbouring ocean basins associated with it via the Walker circulation. Sensitivity experiments show that much of the improvement with resolution in the Maritime Continent region is due to the specification of better resolved surface boundary conditions (land fraction, soil and vegetation parameters) at the higher resolution. It is shown that in particular the formulation of the coastal tiling scheme may cause resolution sensitivity of the mean simulated climate. The improvement in the tropical mean precipitation in this region is not primarily associated with the better representation of orography at the higher resolution, nor with changes in the eddy transport of moisture. Sizeable sensitivity to changes in the surface fields may be one of the reasons for the large variation of the mean tropical precipitation distribution seen across climate models.     

Entropy production and coarse graining of the climate fields in a general circulation model

We extend the analysis of the thermodynamics of the climate system by investigating the role played by processes taking place at various spatial and temporal scales through a procedure of coarse graining. We show that the coarser is the graining of the climatic fields, the lower is the resulting estimate of the material entropy production. In other terms, all the spatial and temporal scales of variability of the thermodynamic fields provide a positive contribution to the material entropy production. This may be interpreted also as that, at all scales, the temperature fields and the heating fields resulting from the convergence of turbulent fluxes have a negative correlation, while the opposite holds between the temperature fields and the radiative heating fields. Moreover, we obtain that the latter correlations are stronger, which confirms that radiation acts as primary driver for the climatic processes, while the material fluxes dampen the resulting fluctuations through dissipative processes. We also show, using specific coarse-graining procedures, how one can separate the various contributions to the material entropy production coming from the dissipation of kinetic energy, the vertical sensible and latent heat fluxes, and the large scale horizontal fluxes, without resorting to the full three-dimensional time dependent fields. We find that most of the entropy production is associated to irreversible exchanges occurring along the vertical direction, and that neglecting the horizontal and time variability of the fields has a relatively small impact on the estimate of the material entropy production. The approach presented here seems promising for testing climate models, for assessing the impact of changing their parametrizations and their resolution, as well as for investigating the atmosphere of exoplanets, because it allows for evaluating the error in the estimate of their thermodynamical properties due to the lack of high-resolution data. The findings on the impact of coarse graining on the thermodynamic fields on the estimate of the material entropy production deserve to be explored in a more general context, because they provide a way for understanding the relationship between forced fluctuations and dissipative processes in continuum systems.     

Sensitivity of transient eddies to climate change in the CCC general circulation model

Abstract

We use eddy life‐cycle simulations to evaluate the response of atmospheric transient eddies to a global warming caused by CO₂ doubling in the CCC general circulation model. In simulations using Northern Hemisphere winter conditions, transient waves attain larger kinetic energy and encompass a wider range of latitudes in the warmer climate. This behaviour contrasts with a previous investigation that used output from the NCAR and GFDL models. Our analysis indicates two primary factors for the difference between model responses: (1) a smaller change in the mid‐latitude temperature gradient in the CCC model, which allows (2) increased atmospheric water vapour in mid‐latitudes to catalyze a more rapidly evolving life‐cycle.     

Inverse relationship between the equatorial eastern Pacific annual-cycle and ENSO amplitudes in a coupled general circulation model

We propose a dynamical interpretation of the inverse relationship between the tropical eastern Pacific annual-cycle (AC) amplitude and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) amplitude, based on a pre-industrial simulation of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Couple climate model 2.0 with a fixed concentration of greenhouse gases spanning approximately 500 years. The slowly varying background conditions over more than a decade alternately provided favorable conditions for two opposite regimes, namely the ‘strong AC—weak ENSO regime’ and the ‘weak AC—strong ENSO regime’. For the weak AC—strong ENSO regime, the tropical eastern Pacific shows meridional-asymmetric surface warming with an emphasis on the southern part, leading to weakening of both the zonal trade wind and the cross equatorial southerly wind, as well as deepening of both the thermocline and mixed layer. The deeper mixed layer, weaker southerly wind, and reduced zonal gradient of the mean sea surface temperature due to tropical eastern Pacific warming all acts to reduce the AC. Conversely, the ENSO was intensified by the deeper mixed layer and deeper thermocline depth (thermocline feedback), but suppressed by the deeper thermocline depth (Ekman feedback) and the reduced zonal temperature gradient. We also computed the coupling strengths of the ENSO and AC, defined as the linear regression coefficients of the zonal and meridional wind stresses against the eastern Pacific SST, respectively. The coupling strengths of both the AC and ENSO are larger when they are intensified, and vice versa. All processes for the weak AC—strong ENSO regime operate in the opposite manner for the strong AC—weak ENSO regime.     

Sensitivity of climate simulations to the parameterization of cumulus convection in the Canadian climate centre general circulation model

Abstract

A simplified cumulus parameterization scheme, suitable for use in GCMs, is presented. This parameterization is based on a plume ensemble concept similar to that originally proposed by Arakawa and Schubert (1974). However, it employs three assumptions which significantly simplify the formulation and implementation of the scheme. It is assumed that an ensemble of convective‐scale updrafts with associated saturated downdrafts may exist when the atmosphere is locally conditionally unstable in the lower troposphere. However, the updraft ensemble is comprised only of those plumes which are sufficiently buoyant to penetrate through this unstable layer. It is assumed that all such plumes have the same upward mass flux at the base of the convective layer. The third assumption is that moist convection, which occurs only when there is convective available potential energy (CAPE) for reversible ascent of an undiluted parcel from the sub‐cloud layer, acts to remove CAPE at an exponential rate with a specified adjustment time scale.

The performance of the scheme and its sensitivity to choices of disposable parameters is illustrated by presenting results from a series of idealized single‐column model tests. These tests demonstrate that the scheme permits establishment of a quasi‐equilibrium between large‐scale forcing and convective response. However, it is also shown that the strength of convective downdrafts is an important factor in determining the nature of the equilibrium state. Relatively strong down‐drafts give rise to an unsteady irregularly fluctuating state characterized by alternate periods of deep and shallow convection.

The effect of using the scheme for GCM climate simulations is illustrated by presenting selected results of a multi‐year simulation carried out with the Canadian Climate Centre GCM using the new parameterization (the CONV simulation). Comparison of these results with those for a climate simulation made with the standard model (the CONTROL simulation, as documented by McFarlane et al., 1992) reveals the importance of other parameterized processes in determining the ultimate effect of introducing the new convective scheme. The radiative response to changes in the cloudiness regime is particularly important in this regard.     

Snow and cloud feedbacks modelled by an atmospheric general circulation model

One of the most important parametrizations in general circulation models used for climate change experiments is that of the surface albedo. The results of an albedo feedback experiment carried out under the auspices of the US Department of Energy are presented. An analysis of long and short wave components of the model response shows that short wave response dominates changes in fixed to variable albedo experiments, but that long wave response dominates in clear to cloudy sky changes. Cloud distribution changes are also discussed and are related to changes in global sensitivity. At the surface, the heat balance change for perturbed sea surface temperatures is dominated by changes in latent heat flux and downward long wave radiation. If albedo is freed up however, the major contrast lies in the change in surface reflected short wave radiation, amplified by changes in downward short wave radiation caused by cloud amount changes.