Toward eliminating the decades‐old ”too zonal and too equatorward” storm‐track bias in climate models
Generations of climate models exhibit biases in their representation of North Atlantic storm tracks, which tend to be too far near the equator and too zonal. Additionally, models have difficulties simulating explosive cyclone growth. These biases are one of the reasons for the uncertainties in proje...
Main Authors: | , |
---|---|
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2023
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/596915 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000596915 |
id |
ftethz:oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/596915 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftethz:oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/596915 2023-10-09T21:54:06+02:00 Toward eliminating the decades‐old ”too zonal and too equatorward” storm‐track bias in climate models Schemm, Sebastian id_orcid:0 000-0002-1601-5683 2023-02 application/application/pdf https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/596915 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000596915 en eng Wiley-Blackwell info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1029/2022ms003482 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/wos/001061150800001 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/848698 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/596915 doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000596915 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 15 (2) info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 2023 ftethz https://doi.org/20.500.11850/59691510.3929/ethz-b-00059691510.1029/2022ms003482 2023-09-24T23:50:01Z Generations of climate models exhibit biases in their representation of North Atlantic storm tracks, which tend to be too far near the equator and too zonal. Additionally, models have difficulties simulating explosive cyclone growth. These biases are one of the reasons for the uncertainties in projections of future climate over Europe, and the underlying causes have yet to be determined. All three biases are shown to be related, and diabatic processes are pointed to as a likely cause. To demonstrate this, two hemispherically symmetric storm tracks forming downstream of an idealized sea surface temperature (SST) front on an aquaplanet are examined using the seamless weather and climate prediction model ICOsahedral Non-hydrostatic and its grid refinement capabilities. The analyzed perpetual boreal winter has a global grid spacing of 20 km, two bi-directionally interacting grid nests over the Northern Hemisphere that refine the grid to 10-km spacing over much of the stormtrack and further to 5-km spacing near the SST front. In contrast, no grid refinement is performed for the Southern Hemisphere. Feature-based cyclone tracking shows that the poleward propagation in the NH is enhanced, so the high-resolution storm track is less equatorward and less zonal; explosive deepening rates are more frequent and precipitation rates are amplified. The implication is that resolving diabatic processes on the storm scale improves all three intersecting biases in the representation of storm tracks. While new challenges arise at cloud resolving scales, much improvement for the representation of storm tracks will be gained once climate models resolve the meso-γ scale. ISSN:1942-2466 Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic ETH Zürich Research Collection |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
ETH Zürich Research Collection |
op_collection_id |
ftethz |
language |
English |
description |
Generations of climate models exhibit biases in their representation of North Atlantic storm tracks, which tend to be too far near the equator and too zonal. Additionally, models have difficulties simulating explosive cyclone growth. These biases are one of the reasons for the uncertainties in projections of future climate over Europe, and the underlying causes have yet to be determined. All three biases are shown to be related, and diabatic processes are pointed to as a likely cause. To demonstrate this, two hemispherically symmetric storm tracks forming downstream of an idealized sea surface temperature (SST) front on an aquaplanet are examined using the seamless weather and climate prediction model ICOsahedral Non-hydrostatic and its grid refinement capabilities. The analyzed perpetual boreal winter has a global grid spacing of 20 km, two bi-directionally interacting grid nests over the Northern Hemisphere that refine the grid to 10-km spacing over much of the stormtrack and further to 5-km spacing near the SST front. In contrast, no grid refinement is performed for the Southern Hemisphere. Feature-based cyclone tracking shows that the poleward propagation in the NH is enhanced, so the high-resolution storm track is less equatorward and less zonal; explosive deepening rates are more frequent and precipitation rates are amplified. The implication is that resolving diabatic processes on the storm scale improves all three intersecting biases in the representation of storm tracks. While new challenges arise at cloud resolving scales, much improvement for the representation of storm tracks will be gained once climate models resolve the meso-γ scale. ISSN:1942-2466 |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Schemm, Sebastian id_orcid:0 000-0002-1601-5683 |
spellingShingle |
Schemm, Sebastian id_orcid:0 000-0002-1601-5683 Toward eliminating the decades‐old ”too zonal and too equatorward” storm‐track bias in climate models |
author_facet |
Schemm, Sebastian id_orcid:0 000-0002-1601-5683 |
author_sort |
Schemm, Sebastian |
title |
Toward eliminating the decades‐old ”too zonal and too equatorward” storm‐track bias in climate models |
title_short |
Toward eliminating the decades‐old ”too zonal and too equatorward” storm‐track bias in climate models |
title_full |
Toward eliminating the decades‐old ”too zonal and too equatorward” storm‐track bias in climate models |
title_fullStr |
Toward eliminating the decades‐old ”too zonal and too equatorward” storm‐track bias in climate models |
title_full_unstemmed |
Toward eliminating the decades‐old ”too zonal and too equatorward” storm‐track bias in climate models |
title_sort |
toward eliminating the decades‐old ”too zonal and too equatorward” storm‐track bias in climate models |
publisher |
Wiley-Blackwell |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/596915 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000596915 |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 15 (2) |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1029/2022ms003482 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/wos/001061150800001 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/848698 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/596915 doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000596915 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/20.500.11850/59691510.3929/ethz-b-00059691510.1029/2022ms003482 |
_version_ |
1779317536693682176 |