Journal article
Assessment of the severe weather environment in North America simulated by a global climate model
PT Marsh, HE Brooks, DJ Karoly
Atmospheric Science Letters | WILEY | Published : 2007
DOI: 10.1002/asl.159
Abstract
Annual and seasonal cycles of convectively important atmospheric parameters for North America have been computed using the Community Climate System Model version 3 (CCSM3) Global Climate Model using a decade of CCSM3 data. Results for the spatial and temporal distributions of environments conducive to severe convective weather qualitatively agree with observational estimates from NCAR/NCEP global reanalyses, although the model underestimates the frequency of occurrence of severe weather environments. This result demonstrates the possibility for future studies aimed at determining possible changes in the distribution of severe weather environments associated with global climate change. Copyri..
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Awarded by NSF
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the National Center for Atmospheric Research for archiving, storing, and making accessible the high-resolution data from the CCSM3 and Luca Cinquini of Earth System Grid for help with accessing these data. The authors would also like to extend gratitude to Mary Haley of NCAR for access to and help in debugging the rip_cape_3d routine while still in beta testing and Melissa Bukovsky for help with learning NCL. Additional recognition is extended to Anthony Del Genio and an anonymous reviewer for their reviews of this paper. Last, but not least, the authors would like to thank M. O. Nkey for support during the writing of this paper. This research was supported by NSF SGER grant ATM-0550178.