The tropical Hadley circulation (HC) plays an important role in influencing the climate in the tropics and extra-tropics. The realism of the climatological characteristics, spatial structure, and temporal evolution of the long-term variation of the principal mode of the annual mean HC (i.e., the equatorially asymmetric mode, EAM) was examined in model simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The results showed that all the models are moderately successful in capturing the HC's climatological features, including the spatial pattern, meridional extent, and intensity, but not the spatial or temporal variation of the EAM. The possible reasons for the poor simulation of the long-term variability of the EAM were explored. None of the models can successfully capture the differences in the warming rate between the tropical Southern Hemisphere (SH) and Northern Hemisphere (NH), which is considered to be an important driver for the variation of the AM. Most of the models produce a faster warming in the NH than in the SH, which is the reverse of the observed trend. This leads to a reversed trend in the meridional gradient between the SH and NH, and contributes to the poor simulation of EAM variability. Thus, this aspect of the models should be improved to provide better simulations of the variability of the HC. This study suggests a possible reason for the poor simulation of the HC, which may be helpful for improving the skill of the CMIP5 models in the future. 相似文献
This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of Asian summer monsoon prediction skill as a function of lead time and its relationship to sea surface temperature prediction using the seasonal hindcasts of the Beijing Climate Center Climate System Model, BCC_CSM1.1(m). For the South and Southeast Asian summer monsoon, reasonable skill is found in the model's forecasting of certain aspects of monsoon climatology and spatiotemporal variability. Nevertheless, deficiencies such as significant forecast errors over the tropical western North Pacific and the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean are also found. In particular, overestimation of the connections of some dynamical monsoon indices with large-scale circulation and precipitation patterns exists in most ensemble mean forecasts, even for short lead-time forecasts. Variations of SST, measured by the first mode over the tropical Pacific and Indian oceans, as well as the spatiotemporal features over the Niño3.4 region, are overall well predicted. However, this does not necessarily translate into successful forecasts of the Asian summer monsoon by the model. Diagnostics of the relationships between monsoon and SST show that difficulties in predicting the South Asian monsoon can be mainly attributed to the limited regional response of monsoon in observations but the extensive and exaggerated response in predictions due partially to the application of ensemble average forecasting methods. In contrast, in spite of a similar deficiency, the Southeast Asian monsoon can still be forecasted reasonably, probably because of its closer relationship with large-scale circulation patterns and El Niño-Southern Oscillation. 相似文献
This study aims to validate and improve the universal evaporation duct (UED) model through a further analysis of the stability function (ψ). A large number of hydrometeorological observations obtained from a tower platform near Xisha Island of the South China Sea are employed, together with the latest variations in ψ function. Applicability of different ψ functions for specific sea areas and stratification conditions is investigated based on three objective criteria. The results show that, under unstable conditions, ψ function of Fairall et al. (1996) (i.e., Fairall96, similar for abbreviations of other function names) in general offers the best performance. However, strictly speaking, this holds true only for the stability (represented by bulk Richardson number RiB) range ?2.6 ? RiB < ?0.1; when conditions become weakly unstable (?0.1 ? RiB < ?0.01), Fairall96 offers the second best performance after Hu and Zhang (1992) (HYQ92). Conversely, for near-neutral but slightly unstable conditions (?0.01 ? RiB < 0.0), the effects of Edson04, Fairall03, Grachev00, and Fairall96 are similar, with Edson04 being the best function but offering only a weak advantage. Under stable conditions, HYQ92 is the optimal and offers a pronounced advantage, followed by the newly introduced SHEBA07 (by Grachev et al., 2007) function. Accordingly, the most favorable functions, i.e., Fairall96 and HYQ92, are incorporated into the UED model to obtain an improved version of the model. With the new functions, the mean root-mean-square (rms) errors of the modified refractivity (M), 0–5-m M slope, 5–40-m M slope, and the rms errors of evaporation duct height (EDH) are reduced by 21.65%, 9.12%, 38.79%, and 59.06%, respectively, compared to the classical Naval Postgraduate School model.
An observational analysis of the structures and characteristics of a windy atmospheric boundary layer during a cold air outbreak in the South China Sea region is reported in this paper. It is found that the main structures and characteristics are the same as during strong wind episodes with cold air outbreaks on land. The high frequency turbulent fluctuations(period<1 min) are nearly random and isotropic with weak coherency, but the gusty wind disturbances(1 min相似文献