Abstract ID: 055
Stationary wave biases and their effect on upward troposphere– stratosphere coupling in sub-seasonal prediction models
Lead Author: Chaim I. Garfinkel
The Fredy and Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Keywords: Stationary wave, Stratosphere-troposphere coupling, Subseasonal models
Abstract: The simulated Northern Hemisphere winter stationary wave (SW) field is investigated in 11 Subseasonal-to-Seasonal (S2S) prediction project models. It is shown that while most models considered can well simulate the stationary wavenumbers 1 and 2 during the first 2 weeks of integration, they diverge from observations following week 3. Those models with a poor resolution in the stratosphere struggle to simulate the waves, in both the troposphere and the stratosphere, even during the first 2 weeks. Focusing on the tropospheric regions where SWs peak in amplitude reveals that the models generally do a better job in simulating the northwestern Pacific stationary trough, while certain models struggle to simulate the stationary ridges in both western North America and the North Atlantic. In addition, a strong relationship is found between regional biases in the stationary height field and model errors in simulated upward propagation of planetary waves into the stratosphere. In the stratosphere, biases are mostly in wave 2 in those models with high stratospheric resolution, whereas in those models with low resolution in the stratosphere, a wave 1 bias is evident, which leads to a strong bias in the stratospheric mean zonal circulation due to the predominance of wave 1 there. Finally, biases in both amplitude and location of mean tropical convection and the subsequent subtropical downwelling are identified as possible contributors to biases in the regional SW field in the troposphere.
Co-authors:
Chen Schwartz (The Fredy and Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel)
Priyanka Yadav (Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland)
Wen Chen (College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China) (Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China)
Daniela I. V. Domeisen (Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland) (Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland)
