The APE atlas

• Other Authors: Williamson, David (author), Blackburn, Michael (author), Hoskins, Brian (author), Nakajima, Kensuke (author), Ohfuchi, Wataru (author), Takahashi, Yoshiyuki (author), Hayashi, Yoshi-Yuki (author), Nakamura, Hisashi (author), Ishiwatari, Masaki (author), McGregor, John (author), Borth, Hartmut (author), Wirth, Volkmar (author), Frank, Helmut (author), Bechtold, Peter (author), Wedi, Nils (author), Tomita, Hirofumi (author), Satoh, Masaki (author), Zhao, Ming (author), Held, Isaac (author), Suarez, Max (author), Lee, Myong-In (author), Watanabe, Masahiro (author), Kimoto, Masahide (author), Liu, Yimin (author), Wang, Zaizhi (author), Molod, Andrea (author), Rajendran, Kavirajan (author), Kitoh, Akio (author), Stratton, Rachel (author)
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Atmospheric general circulation modelsEARTH SCIENCE SERVICES:MODELS:ATMOSPHERIC GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS; Atmospheric general circulation models > 063177a9-14cd-4750-9aa4-ad5d266bd7ad EARTH SCIENCE SERVICES:MODELS:ATMOSPHERIC GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS; Blackburn; Hoskins; Suarez; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/collections/TECH-NOTE-000-000-000-865; https://doi.org/10.5065/D6FF3QBR

This Atlas presents statistical analyses of the simulations submitted to the Aqua-Planet Experiment (APE) data archive. The simulations are from global Atmospheric General Circulation Models (AGCM) applied to a water-covered earth. The AGCMs include ones actively used or being developed for numerical weather prediction or climate research. Some are mature, application models and others are more novel and thus less well tested in Earth-like applications. The experiment applies AGCMs with their complete parameterization package to an idealization of the planet Earth which has a greatly simplified lower boundary that consists of an ocean only. It has no land and its associated orography, and no sea ice. The ocean is represented by Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) which are specified everywhere with simple, idealized distributions. Thus in the hierarchy of tests available for AGCMs, APE falls between tests with simplified forcings such as those proposed by Held and Suarez (1994) and Boer and Denis (1997) and Earth-like simulations of the Atmospheric Modeling Intercomparison Project (AMIP, Gates et al., 1999). Blackburn and Hoskins (2013) summarize the APE and its aims. They discuss where the APE fits within a modeling hierarchy which has evolved to evaluate complete models and which provides a link between realistic simulation and conceptual models of atmospheric phenomena. The APE bridges a gap in the existing hierarchy. The goals of APE are to provide a benchmark of current model behaviors and to stimulate research to understand the cause of inter-model differences. APE is sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) joint Commission on Atmospheric Science (CAS), World Climate Research Program (WCRP) Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (WGNE). Chapter 2 of this Atlas provides an overview of the specification of the eight APE experiments and of the data collected. Chapter 3 lists the participating models and includes brief descriptions of each. Chapters 4 through 7 present a wide variety of ...