Evaluation of FAMIL2 in Simulating the Climatology and Seasonal‐to‐Interannual Variability of Tropical Cyclone Characteristics

Abstract

We evaluate the ability of the latest generation atmospheric general circulation model from State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (namely, FAMIL2) in simulating some key characteristics (genesis location, track, number, and intensity) of tropical cyclones (TCs) in terms of their climatology and seasonal to interannual variability. A standard 1° × 1° atmospheric model intercomparison project experiment is carried out for the period 1979–2002, and the last 20 years of outputs are used for analysis. The same period from International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) is used as the observation for comparison purposes. The evaluations focus on TC activity at the global scale as well as in the three key regions of the northern Indian Ocean (NIO), western Pacific (WP) and northern Atlantic (NA). With respect to the simulated TC climatology, FAMIL2 shows notable ability in correctly reproducing the main characteristics of the genesis locations, tracks, and numbers of TC, particularly over the key regions of TC activity in the Northern Hemisphere; whereas, it underestimates the intensities of TC, as is the case with many state‐of‐the‐art climate models operating at a medium resolution. On seasonal‐to‐interannual time scales, meanwhile, FAMIL2 successfully reproduces the seasonal cycles of TC numbers over the NIO and WP regions, the former being characterized by double TC peaks (in May and October) and the latter by a maximum peak season in August. However, the model only captures these features approximately. For the simulated interannual variability of TC activity, the correlation coefficients of 20‐year TC numbers between FAMIL2 and IBTrACS are 0.22, 0.51 (95% confidence interval), and 0.49 (95% confidence interval) for the NIO, WP, and NA, respectively. We also examine the possible reasons behind the performance of FAMIL2 by investigating its subseasonal signs related to the Madden‐Julian Oscillation (MJO) and convectively coupled equatorial waves. The TC genesis potential index is employed to investigate the possible impacts of the large‐scale dynamic fields on the simulation of TC activity. Finally, the biases of simulated TC activity, as well as possible solutions for these biases, are discussed with respect to the horizontal resolution of the model. A TC forecasting case study is introduced as a first step in applying FAMIL2 to a TC forecasting system.

CAS FGOALS-f3-L Model Datasets for CMIP6 Historical Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project Simulation

“…2.1. Introduction to the model CAS FGOALS-f3-L is composed of five components: version 2.2 of the Finite-volume Atmospheric Model (FAMIL) (Zhou et al, 2015;Bao et al, 2019;Li et al, 2019), which is the new generation atmospheric general circulation model of the Spectral Atmosphere Model of LASG (SAMIL) (Wu et al, 1996;Bao et al, 2010Bao et al, , 2013) (their main differences are shown in Table 1); version 3 of the LASG/IAP Climate system Ocean Model (LICOM3) (Liu et al, 2012); version 4.0 of the Community Land Model (CLM4) (Oleson et al, 2010); version 4 of the Los Alamos sea ice model (CICE4) (Hunke and Lipscomb, 2010); and version 7 of the coupled module from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) (http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/ models/cesm1.0/cpl7/), which is used to exchange the fluxes among these components.…”

CAS FGOALS-f3-H and CAS FGOALS-f3-L outputs for the high-resolution model intercomparison project simulation of CMIP6

“…In addition, integrations of Tier 3 also provide another potential way for decadal predictions. These two models have the same atmospheric and land components: FAMIL (Bao et al 2019;He et al 2019;Li et al 2019;He et al 2020) and CLM4. Regarding the Tier 1 and 3 experiments, the sea-ice and ocean components are data models.…”

“…The high-resolution and low-resolution (standard) versions of the Chinese Academy of Science FGOALS climate system model, CAS FGOALS-f3-H (FGOALS-f3-H for short) and CAS FGOALS-f3-L (FGOALS-f3-L for short) respectively, were developed at the State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Beijing, China (Bao et al 2019;He et al 2019;Li et al 2019;Bao and Li 2020). The model completed the simulations of HighResMIP Tier 1 in early 2019, and finished the projection of HighResMIP Tier 3 in early 2020.…”

CAS FGOALS-f3-L Model Datasets for CMIP6 GMMIP Tier-1 and Tier-3 Experiments

“…The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System (FGOALS-f3-L) climate system model, which was developed at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP)/State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG) (Zhou et al, 2012(Zhou et al, , 2015Bao et al, 2019), recently finished GMMIP Tier-1 and Tier-3 simulations. To provide an essential model configuration and experimental method for a variety of users, we provide detailed descriptions of the model design and data outputs of the GMMIP Tier-1 and Tier-3 experiments by the CAS FGOALS-f3-L model in this study.…”

“…For convenience for those using only the GMMIP datasets, we briefly reintro-duce the model here. The CAS FGOALS-f3-L model is structured with five components: version 2.2 of the Finitevolume Atmospheric model (FAMIL) (Zhou et al, 2015;Bao et al, 2019;Li et al, 2019), which is the next generation atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) Spectral Atmospheric Model (SAMIL) (Wu et al, 1996;Bao et al, 2010Bao et al, , 2013; version 3 of the LASG/IAP Climate system Ocean Model (LICOM3) (Liu et al, 2012); version 4.0 of the Community Land Model (CLM4) (Oleson et al, 2010); and version 4 of the Los Alamos sea ice model (CICE4) (Hunke et al, 2010). The fluxes are exchanged between these components using version 7 of the coupler module from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) (http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/cesm1.0/ cpl7/).…”