Title: Introduction to CAUSES: Description of Weather and Climate Models and Their Near-Surface Temperature Errors in 5 day Hindcasts Near the Southern Great Plains

Abstract

We introduce the Clouds Above the United States and Errors at the Surface (CAUSES) project with its aim of better understanding the physical processes leading to warm screen temperature biases over the American Midwest in many numerical models. In this first of four companion papers, 11 different models, from nine institutes, perform a series of 5 day hindcasts, each initialized from reanalyses. After describing the common experimental protocol and detailing each model configuration, a gridded temperature data set is derived from observations and used to show that all the models have a warm bias over parts of the Midwest. Additionally, a strong diurnal cycle in the screen temperature bias is found in most models. In some models the bias is largest around midday, while in others it is largest during the night. At the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Southern Great Plains (SGP) site, the model biases are shown to extend several kilometers into the atmosphere. Finally, to provide context for the companion papers, in which observations from the SGP site are used to evaluate the different processes contributing to errors there, it is shown that there are numerous locations across the Midwest where the diurnal cycle of themore » error is highly correlated with the diurnal cycle of the error at SGP. This suggests that conclusions drawn from detailed evaluation of models using instruments located at SGP will be representative of errors that are prevalent over a larger spatial scale.« less

Authors:

Morcrette, C. J.  ^[1];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Morcrette, C. J."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-4240-8472"

Van Weverberg, K.  ^[1];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Van Weverberg, K."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-5397-7320"

Ma, H. -Y.  ^[2];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Ma, H. -Y."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-9628-1278"

Ahlgrimm, M.  ^[3];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Ahlgrimm, M."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-8482-0668"

Bazile, E.  ^[4];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-8120-9970"

Berg, L. K.  ^[5];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-3362-9492"

Cheng, A.  ^[6];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-6870-6945"

Cheruy, F.  ^[7];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-2833-7273"

Cole, J.  ^[8];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-0450-2748"

Forbes, R.  ^[3];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-3596-8287"

Gustafson, Jr, W. I.  ^[5];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-9927-1393"

Huang, M.  ^[5];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-9154-9485"

Lee, W. -S.  ^[8];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-3955-1139"

Liu, Y.  ^[5];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-5685-7423"

Mellul, L. ^[7]; Merryfield, W. J.  ^[8];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-4280-9724"

Qian, Y.  ^[5];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-4821-1934"

Roehrig, R.  ^[4];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-3903-3841"

Wang, Y. -C.  ^[9];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-2781-8673"

Xie, S.  ^[2]

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-8931-5145"

more »; Xu, K. -M.  ^[6];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-7851-2629"

Zhang, C.  ^[2];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-9632-0716"

Klein, S.  ^[2];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-5476-858X"

Petch, J.  ^[1]

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-1476-5103"

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Met Office, Exeter UK
2. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA USA
3. European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading UK
4. CNRM, Météo-France/CNRS, Toulouse France
5. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland WA USA
6. NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA USA
7. Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Paris France
8. Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria British Columbia Canada
9. Academia Sinica, Taipei Taiwan

Publication Date:

Mon Mar 12 00:00:00 EDT 2018

Research Org.:

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Met Office, Exeter (United Kingdom)

Sponsoring Org.:

Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division

Contributing Org.:

Met Office (UK), LLNL (USA), PNNL (USA), ECMWF (UK), Meteofrance/CNRM/CNRS (France), LMD (France), Academia Sinica (Taiwan)

OSTI Identifier:

1426306

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1426307; OSTI ID: 1429920; OSTI ID: 1438772; OSTI ID: 1501543

Report Number(s):

PNNL-SA-126058; LLNL-JRNL-732218
Journal ID: ISSN 2169-897X

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC52-07NA27344; SC0014122; SC0005259; AC05-76RL01830; AC02-05CH11231; DARI-0292

Resource Type:

Published Article

Journal Name:

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Journal Volume: 123 Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 2169-897X

Publisher:

American Geophysical Union

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; systematic errors; surface temperature bias; ARM; SGP; 58 GEOSCIENCES; Atmospheric modelling, climate simulations, surface temperature, warm bias, clouds, land-surface