Comparison of Convection Characteristics at the Tropical Western Pacific Darwin Site Between Observation and Global Climate Models Simulations
One of the scientific objectives of the ARM Tropical Warm Pool International Cloud Experiment (TWPICE) planned for early 2006 at Darwin, Australia is to describe convection characteristics and its interaction with the large-scale fields. In view of the short duration of the experiment, it is important to determine the long-term statistics of convection and its associated clouds from the observations and global climate models (GCM) so as to put the experiment results in proper climate perspective. For this purpose, we examine several important fields associated with the characteristics of convection and the relationships between convection and clouds using GCM simulations and available satellite and surface observations. These include the seasonal variation of convection, the relationships between convection and the upper-level cloud amount, cloud ice water content and cloud radiative forcing. One major goal of the ARM program is to improve GCM cloud and convection parameterizations. Using NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM3), we demonstrate that GCM simulations in the tropical western Pacific including Darwin can be significantly improved by improving convection parameterization.
- Research Organization:
- Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 850006
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Fifteenth Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Science Team Meeting, Daytona Beach, FL (US), 14-18 Mar 2005
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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