Assessing Tropical Cyclones’ Contribution to Precipitation over the Eastern United States and Sensitivity to the Variable-Resolution Domain Extent
Abstract
Tropical cyclones (TCs) can subject an area to heavy precipitation for many hours, or even days, worsening the risk of flooding, which creates dangerous conditions for residents of the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts. To study the representation of TC-related precipitation over the eastern United States in current-generation global climate models, a novel analysis methodology is developed to track TCs and extract their associated precipitation using an estimate of their dynamical outer size. This methodology is applied to three variable-resolution (VR) configurations of the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5), with high-resolution domains over the North Atlantic and one low-resolution conventional configuration, as well as to a combination of reanalysis and observational precipitation data. Metrics and diagnostics such as TC counts, intensities, outer storm sizes, and annual mean total and extreme precipitation are compared between the CAM5 simulations and reanalysis/observations. The high-resolution VR configurations outperform the global low-resolution configuration for all variables in the North Atlantic. Realistic TC intensities are produced by the VR configurations. The total North Atlantic TC counts are lower than observations but better than reanalysis.
- Authors:
-
- Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States)
- Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
- Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
- Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1803075
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0016605
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Hydrometeorology
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 21; Journal Issue: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 1525-755X
- Publisher:
- American Meteorological Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences; Precipitation; Tropical cyclones; Climatology; Climate models; Model evaluation/performance
Citation Formats
Stansfield, Alyssa M., Reed, Kevin A., Zarzycki, Colin M., Ullrich, Paul A., and Chavas, Daniel R. Assessing Tropical Cyclones’ Contribution to Precipitation over the Eastern United States and Sensitivity to the Variable-Resolution Domain Extent. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1175/jhm-d-19-0240.1.
Stansfield, Alyssa M., Reed, Kevin A., Zarzycki, Colin M., Ullrich, Paul A., & Chavas, Daniel R. Assessing Tropical Cyclones’ Contribution to Precipitation over the Eastern United States and Sensitivity to the Variable-Resolution Domain Extent. United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/jhm-d-19-0240.1
Stansfield, Alyssa M., Reed, Kevin A., Zarzycki, Colin M., Ullrich, Paul A., and Chavas, Daniel R. Wed .
"Assessing Tropical Cyclones’ Contribution to Precipitation over the Eastern United States and Sensitivity to the Variable-Resolution Domain Extent". United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/jhm-d-19-0240.1. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1803075.
@article{osti_1803075,
title = {Assessing Tropical Cyclones’ Contribution to Precipitation over the Eastern United States and Sensitivity to the Variable-Resolution Domain Extent},
author = {Stansfield, Alyssa M. and Reed, Kevin A. and Zarzycki, Colin M. and Ullrich, Paul A. and Chavas, Daniel R.},
abstractNote = {Tropical cyclones (TCs) can subject an area to heavy precipitation for many hours, or even days, worsening the risk of flooding, which creates dangerous conditions for residents of the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts. To study the representation of TC-related precipitation over the eastern United States in current-generation global climate models, a novel analysis methodology is developed to track TCs and extract their associated precipitation using an estimate of their dynamical outer size. This methodology is applied to three variable-resolution (VR) configurations of the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5), with high-resolution domains over the North Atlantic and one low-resolution conventional configuration, as well as to a combination of reanalysis and observational precipitation data. Metrics and diagnostics such as TC counts, intensities, outer storm sizes, and annual mean total and extreme precipitation are compared between the CAM5 simulations and reanalysis/observations. The high-resolution VR configurations outperform the global low-resolution configuration for all variables in the North Atlantic. Realistic TC intensities are produced by the VR configurations. The total North Atlantic TC counts are lower than observations but better than reanalysis.},
doi = {10.1175/jhm-d-19-0240.1},
journal = {Journal of Hydrometeorology},
number = 7,
volume = 21,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}
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