Climatic features of the Red Sea from a regional assimilative model

Abstract

The Advanced Research version of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF‐ARW) model was used to generate a downscaled, 10‐km resolution regional climate dataset over the Red Sea and adjacent region. The model simulations are performed based on two, two‐way nested domains of 30‐ and 10‐km resolutions assimilating all conventional observations using a cyclic three‐dimensional variational approach over an initial 12‐h period. The improved initial conditions are then used to generate regional climate products for the following 24 h. We combined the resulting daily 24‐h datasets to construct a 15‐year Red Sea atmospheric downscaled product from 2000 to 2014. This 15‐year downscaled dataset is evaluated via comparisons with various in situ and gridded datasets. Our analysis indicates that the assimilated model successfully reproduced the spatial and temporal variability of temperature, wind, rainfall, relative humidity and sea level pressure over the Red Sea region. The model also efficiently simulated the seasonal and monthly variability of wind patterns, the Red Sea Convergence Zone and associated rainfall. Our results suggest that dynamical downscaling and assimilation of available observations improve the representation of regional atmospheric features over the Red Sea compared to global analysis data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. We use the dataset to describe the atmospheric climatic conditions over the Red Sea region.

Sensitivity Studies of the Red Sea Eddies Using Adjoint Method

“…The wind speed is affected by large‐scale atmospheric conditions over the Mediterranean Sea and the northern Indian Ocean (Langodan et al, ). In addition, during winter, the northwest winds meet the southeast winds in the central Red Sea to form the Red Sea convergence zone (Viswanadhapalli et al, ). This pattern shifts in April to the summer regime when the northwest winds dominate the entire basin.…”

The Gulf of Aden Intermediate Water Intrusion Regulates the Southern Red Sea Summer Phytoplankton Blooms

“…Monsoon winds have been shown to be critical drivers of phytoplankton seasonal variability in other subtropical areas such as Sanya Bay (South China Sea), where the occurrence of summer and winter blooms correspond to monsoon winds [36]. Wind fields from a high resolution, downscaled assimilated product [37,38] were used to analyse the atmospheric variability, since it provides higher resolutions compared to publicly available wind datasets and assimilates all available in situ data in the region. The atmospheric product was developed at KAUST by the Earth Modeling and prediction group, using the Advanced Research–Weather Research and Forecasting atmospheric model [39].…”

“…Further details on the experimental design and methodology as well as on the performance of the analysis product are provided in Viswanadhapalli et al . [38]. In this study the surface variables are extensively validated with all available observations at different time scales, while regional climatic characteristics are discussed and validated with FNL and different satellite products.…”

Natural Climate Oscillations may Counteract Red Sea Warming Over the Coming Decades

“…A North-South gradient was observed in both cooling and warming phases, with higher rates in the Northern Red Sea. Indeed, the northern Red Sea is mostly affected by climatic indices based mainly on the large-scale atmospheric circulation that originates in the North Atlantic (Abualnaja et al, 2015;Papadopoulos et al, 2013;Viswanadhapalli et al, 2016). This similarity may be attributed to the extensive atmospheric teleconnection affecting a large part of the Northern Hemisphere.…”