The North American Monsoon Model Assessment Project: Integrating Numerical Modeling into a Field-based Process Study

Gutzler, David S.; Kim, H. K.; Higgins, R. Wayne; Juang, Hann‐Ming Henry; Kanamitsu, Masao; Mitchell, Kenneth E.; Mo, Kingtse C.; Pegion, Phillip; Ritchie, Elizabeth A.; Schemm, Jae; Schubert, Siegfried D.; Song, Yajuan; Yang, Rongqian

doi:10.1175/bams-86-10-1423

Cited by 49 publications

(40 citation statements)

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“…The NAME Model Assessment Project (NAMAP) focussed on simulations of selected summer periods by numerous GCMs and RCMs. The first stage of the project was centred on the 1990 warm season (Gutzler et al 2005), and the second stage (NAMAP2), on the 2004 warm season when an extensive field campaign was performed. Six GCMs and four RCMs participated in NAMAP2 (Gutzler et al 2009); it has been shown that GCMs do not have sufficient horizontal resolution to correctly reproduce the complex structure of atmospheric circulation associated with NAM.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reanalysis-driven climate simulation over CORDEX North America domain using the Canadian Regional Climate Model, version 5: model performance evaluation

et al. 2013

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The performance of reanalysis-driven Canadian Regional Climate Model, version 5 (CRCM5) in reproducing the present climate over the North American COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment domain for the 1989-2008 period has been assessed in comparison with several observation-based datasets. The model reproduces satisfactorily the near-surface temperature and precipitation characteristics over most part of North America. Coastal and mountainous zones remain problematic: a cold bias (2-6°C) prevails over Rocky Mountains in summertime and all year-round over Mexico; winter precipitation in mountainous coastal regions is overestimated. The precipitation patterns related to the North American Monsoon are well reproduced, except on its northern limit. The spatial and temporal structure of the Great Plains Low-Level Jet is well reproduced by the model; however, the night-time precipitation maximum in the jet area is underestimated. The performance of CRCM5 was assessed against earlier CRCM versions and other RCMs. CRCM5 is shown to have been substantially improved compared to CRCM3 and CRCM4 in terms of seasonal mean statistics, and to be comparable to other modern RCMs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reanalysis-driven climate simulation over CORDEX North America domain using the Canadian Regional Climate Model, version 5: model performance evaluation

et al. 2013

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“…Motivated by the modeling challenges outlined above, a coordinated set of retrospective simulations of the 1990 summer season, called the NAME Model Assessment Project (NAMAP), was carried out prior to the NAME field campaign (Gutzler et al 2004(Gutzler et al , 2005. Both global and regional models were represented in the NAMAP assessment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These goals were formulated in terms of metrics for subsequent simulations (Gutzler et al 2004(Gutzler et al , 2005. The metrics included d determination of observed monsoon onset within 1 week, d correct simulation of monthly averaged precipitation rates to within 20% throughout the diurnal cycle, d simulation of the magnitude of the observed afternoon peak of latent and sensible heat fluxes to within 20% on a monthly averaged basis, and d correct simulation of the position of the Gulf of California low-level jet with respect to the gulf and the high topography to the east.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulations of the 2004 North American Monsoon: NAMAP2

et al. 2009

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The second phase of the North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME) Model Assessment Project (NAMAP2) was carried out to provide a coordinated set of simulations from global and regional models of the 2004 warm season across the North American monsoon domain. This project follows an earlier assessment, called NAMAP, that preceded the 2004 field season of the North American Monsoon Experiment. Six global and four regional models are all forced with prescribed, time-varying ocean surface temperatures. Metrics for model simulation of warm season precipitation processes developed in NAMAP are examined that pertain to the seasonal progression and diurnal cycle of precipitation, monsoon onset, surface turbulent fluxes, and simulation of the low-level jet circulation over the Gulf of California. Assessment of the metrics is shown to be limited by continuing uncertainties in spatially averaged observations, demonstrating that modeling and observational analysis capabilities need to be developed concurrently. Simulations of the core subregion (CORE) of monsoonal precipitation in global models have improved since NAMAP, despite the lack of a proper low-level jet circulation in these simulations. Some regional models run at higher resolution still exhibit the tendency observed in NAMAP to overestimate precipitation in the CORE subregion; this is shown to involve both convective and resolved components of the total precipitation. The variability of precipitation in the Arizona/New Mexico (AZNM) subregion is simulated much better by the regional models compared with the global models, illustrating the importance of transient circulation anomalies (prescribed as lateral boundary conditions) for simulating precipitation in the northern part of the monsoon domain. This suggests that seasonal predictability derivable from lower boundary conditions may be limited in the AZNM subregion.

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“…Currently there is a comprehensive multimodel assessment project associated with NAME (Gutzler et al 2005). For the general circulation models (GCMs), on the other hand, only a few previous studies have examined the simulations of the North American monsoon and associated intraseasonal variability by individual models (e.g., Krishnamurti et al 2000;Arritt et al 2000;Yang et al 2001;Berbery and Fox-Rabinovitz 2003;Kunkel 2003;Farrara and Yu 2003;Collier and Zhang 2006;Lee et al 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

North American Monsoon and Convectively Coupled Equatorial Waves Simulated by IPCC AR4 Coupled GCMs

Lin

Mapes

Weickmann³

et al. 2008

Journal of Climate

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This study evaluates the fidelity of North American monsoon and associated intraseasonal variability in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) coupled general circulation models (CGCMs). Twenty years of monthly precipitation data from each of the 22 models' twentieth-century climate simulations, together with the available daily precipitation data from 12 of them, are analyzed and compared with Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) monthly and daily precipitation. The authors focus on the seasonal cycle and horizontal pattern of monsoon precipitation in conjunction with the two dominant convectively coupled equatorial wave modes: the eastward-propagating Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) and the westward-propagating easterly waves.The results show that the IPCC AR4 CGCMs have significant problems and display a wide range of skill in simulating the North American monsoon and associated intraseasonal variability. Most of the models reproduce the monsoon rainbelt, extending from southeast to northwest, and its gradual northward shift in early summer, but overestimate the precipitation over the core monsoon region throughout the seasonal cycle and fail to reproduce the monsoon retreat in the fall. Additionally, most models simulate good westward propagation of the easterly waves, but relatively poor eastward propagation of the MJO and overly weak variances for both the easterly waves and the MJO. There is a tendency for models without undiluted updrafts in their deep convection scheme to produce better MJO propagation.

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The North American Monsoon Model Assessment Project: Integrating Numerical Modeling into a Field-based Process Study

Cited by 49 publications

References 2 publications

Reanalysis-driven climate simulation over CORDEX North America domain using the Canadian Regional Climate Model, version 5: model performance evaluation

Reanalysis-driven climate simulation over CORDEX North America domain using the Canadian Regional Climate Model, version 5: model performance evaluation

Simulations of the 2004 North American Monsoon: NAMAP2

North American Monsoon and Convectively Coupled Equatorial Waves Simulated by IPCC AR4 Coupled GCMs

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