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Performance of goddard earth observing system gcm column radiation models under heterogeneous cloud conditions
| Content Provider | NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
|---|---|
| Author | Chou, M.-D. Cahalan, R. F. Barker, H. W. Oreopoulos, L. Khairoutdinov, M. |
| Copyright Year | 2003 |
| Description | We test the performance of the shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) Column Radiation Models (CORAMs) of Chou and collaborators with heterogeneous cloud fields from a global single-day dataset produced by NCAR's Community Atmospheric Model with a 2-D CRM installed in each gridbox. The original SW version of the CORAM performs quite well compared to reference Independent Column Approximation (ICA) calculations for boundary fluxes, largely due to the success of a combined overlap and cloud scaling parameterization scheme. The absolute magnitude of errors relative to ICA are even smaller for the LW CORAM which applies similar overlap. The vertical distribution of heating and cooling within the atmosphere is also simulated quite well with daily-averaged zonal errors always below 0.3 K/d for SW heating rates and 0.6 K/d for LW cooling rates. The SW CORAM's performance improves by introducing a scheme that accounts for cloud inhomogeneity. These results suggest that previous studies demonstrating the inaccuracy of plane-parallel models may have unfairly focused on worst scenario cases, and that current radiative transfer algorithms of General Circulation Models (GCMs) may be more capable than previously thought in estimating realistic spatial and temporal averages of radiative fluxes, as long as they are provided with correct mean cloud profiles. However, even if the errors of the particular CORAMs are small, they seem to be systematic, and the impact of the biases can be fully assessed only with GCM climate simulations. |
| File Size | 1964493 |
| Page Count | 36 |
| File Format | |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_20030102236 |
| Archival Resource Key | ark:/13960/t81k4c50g |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 2003-01-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Meteorology And Climatology Errors Atmospheric General Circulation Models Cloud Cover Radiative Transfer Earth Observing System Eos Vertical Distribution Ntrs Nasa Technical Reports Server (ntrs) Nasa Technical Reports Server Aerodynamics Aircraft Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Aeronautic Space Science |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
