Standard Diagnostics for the Diurnal Cycle

Technical Report · Wed May 21 04:00:00 EDT 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1136147· OSTI ID:1136147

Covey, Curt ^[1]; Gleckler, Peter ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

The purpose of this document is to suggest a strategy for constructing standard diagnostics of the diurnal cycle from both climate model and observational data products. The guiding philosophy is “keep it simple,” in the hope that a diagnostic software package can be readily constructed and widely used. Of course this means that the output of the package will form only the beginning of necessary examination of the diurnal cycle in models and in the real world. The latest version of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, CMIP5, provides several fields at 3- hourly time resolution near the surface: air and surface temperatures, pressure, humidity, soil moisture, horizontal wind, energy flux components, overhead cloudiness, evaporation, precipitation, convective precipitation, and snowfall. (See the “3hr” tab in the Standard Output spreadsheet at http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/data_description.html.) Meanwhile satellite observations provide at least equally fine time resolution and global coverage for some of these fields. This data makes possible an extensive study of the diurnal cycle near the surface.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-07NA27344
• OSTI ID: 1136147
• Report Number(s): LLNL--TR-654743
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
58 GEOSCIENCES