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Title: Physics–Dynamics Coupling in Weather, Climate, and Earth System Models: Challenges and Recent Progress

Journal Article · · Monthly Weather Review
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [6];  [7];  [7];  [8];  [7];  [9];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12];  [4];  [13];  [4] more »;  [2];  [2] « less
  1. Departamento de Oceanografía Física, Centro de Investigación Científica y Educación Superior de Ensenada, Ensenada, Baja California, México
  2. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington
  3. Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California
  4. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
  5. Hans Ertel Center for Weather Research, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Offenbach, Germany
  6. Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
  7. Met Office, Exeter, United Kingdom
  8. CEMPS, Exeter University, Exeter, United Kingdom
  9. INRIA, University of Grenoble–Alpes, LJK, CNRS, Grenoble, France
  10. ECMWF, Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom
  11. Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
  12. IAP Kühlungsborn, Leibniz–Institut für Atmosphärenphysik e.V. an der Universität Rostock, Kühlungsborn, Germany
  13. Applied Numerical Algorithms Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California
+ Show Author Affiliations

© 2018 American Meteorological Society. Numerical weather, climate, or Earth system models involve the coupling of components. At a broad level, these components can be classified as the resolved fluid dynamics, unresolved fluid dynamical aspects (i.e., those represented by physical parameterizations such as subgrid-scale mixing), and nonfluid dynamical aspects such as radiation and microphysical processes. Typically, each component is developed, at least initially, independently.Once development ismature, the components are coupled to deliver a model of the required complexity. The implementation of the coupling can have a significant impact on the model.As the error associated with each component decreases, the errors introduced by the coupling will eventually dominate. Hence, any improvement in one of the components is unlikely to improve the performance of the overall system. The challenges associated with combining the components to create a coherentmodel are here termed physics-dynamics coupling. The issue goes beyond the coupling between the parameterizations and the resolved fluid dynamics. This paper highlights recent progress and some of the current challenges. It focuses on three objectives: to illustrate the phenomenology of the coupling problemwith references to examples in the literature, to show howthe problem can be analyzed, and to create awareness of the issue across the disciplines and specializations. The topics addressed are different ways of advancing full models in time, approaches to understanding the role of the coupling and evaluation of approaches, coupling ocean and atmosphere models, thermodynamic compatibility between model components, and emerging issues such as those that arise as model resolutions increase and/ormodels use variable resolutions.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. Grenoble Alpes (France)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); PNNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; National Research Agency (ANR) (France)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344; AC05-76RL01830; SC0006684; SC0003990; AC02-05CH11231; ANR-14-CE23-0010
OSTI ID:
1475245
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1502013; OSTI ID: 1507739; OSTI ID: 1563976
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-756718; PNNL-SA-137579
Journal Information:
Monthly Weather Review, Journal Name: Monthly Weather Review Vol. 146 Journal Issue: 11; ISSN 0027-0644
Publisher:
American Meteorological SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 44 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Figures / Tables (13)

FIG. 1(p. 3)figure FIG. 1
FIG. 2(p. 5)figure FIG. 2
FIG. 3(p. 10)figure FIG. 3
FIG. 4(p. 11)figure FIG. 4
FIG. 5(p. 14)figure FIG. 5
FIG. 6(p. 15)figure FIG. 6
FIG. 7(p. 15)figure FIG. 7
FIG. 8(p. 18)figure FIG. 8
FIG. 9(p. 23)figure FIG. 9
FIG. 10(p. 26)figure FIG. 10
FIG. 11(p. 27)figure FIG. 11
FIG. 12(p. 30)figure FIG. 12
FIG. 13(p. 31)figure FIG. 13

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
58 GEOSCIENCES
coupled models
model comparison
model errors
model evaluation/performance
numerical analysis/modeling
parameterization