High Resolution Numerical Modelling of the Atmosphere and Ocean

About this book

Many key issues in dynamical meteorology and physical oceanography depend on interactions among diverse spatial scales. Atmospheric examples are the role of small-scale gravity waves in the zonal-mean momentum balance in the middle atmosphere, the role of tropical cyclones in the large scale energy and momentum balances of the troposphere, or even the direction of spectral cascades of variance in the mesoscale. In the ocean issues of this type include: understanding the detailed physics of the very narrow boundary currents that occur along many coastlines, and the role of mesoscale eddies in determining the strength of the large-scale circulations and meridional ocean heat transports.

Truly comprehensive observational diagnostic studies of these issues are essentially impossible, since they would require the global observational overage at extremely high spatial resolution. An alternative is to study such issues in high resolution models that may span 3 or more orders of magnitude in terms of spatial scales.

There has been a great deal of progress recently on development and application of such fine resolution models. This had been spurred in part by the recent availability of exceptionally powerful computers. Noteworthy in this respect is the Earth Simulator in Yokohama, Japan, which commenced operations in 2002 and provides a peak performance of 40 Terraflops, but competitive supercomputers for scientific applications are now becoming available in the USA and Europe as well. There has developed in the last few years an increased understanding of the scientific value of results from very high resolution comprehensive numerical simulations.

This book documents the first international meeting focused specifically on high-resolution atmospheric and oceanic modeling held at the Earth Simulator Center. Rather than producing a standard conference proceedings it includes papers written by invited speakers at the meeting reporting on their most exciting recent results involving high resolution modeling.

Contents

Vortex Rossby wave in hurricanes: On the need for a high resolution Numerical Weather Prediction Strategy (G. Brunet).- High-resolution simulation experiments for typhoons using the cloud-resolving model on the Earth Simulator (T. Kazuhisa).- High-resolution numerical weather prediction: Are our models adequate? (B. Skamarock).- Global warming simulated with a super high resolution global climate model (A. Noda).- Meso-scale resolving simulations of global atmosphere (T. Enomoto).- High-resolution experimentation at ECMWF (A. Untch).- Gravity waves in high resolution atmospheric GCM simulations (K. Hamilton).- Simulations using the conformal-cubic atmospheric model (J. McGregor).- Why the simulation of mid latitude storm tracks requires high resolution (I. Orlanski).- High-resolution simulation of coupled atmospheric-ocean system using the CFES model (N. Komoring).- Seasonal climate predictability in a high-resolution coupled Ocean-Atmosphere GCM (J. Luo).- Impact of high resolution interaction between ocean and atmosphere (K. Takahashi).- Eddy-resolving simulation in the world ocean using the ocean GCM fort he Earth Simulator (H. Sasaki).- Evaluation of eddy effect in the Southern Ocean using high resolution ocean model (Y. Tanaka).-Diagnosis of the upper ocean in the OCCAM high resolution ocean GCM (G. Nurser)

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Biography

Kevin Hamilton is a professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Team Leader for " Regional Impacts of Global Environmental Change" Research at the International Pacific Research Center. Wataru Ohfuchi has held a research scientist position with the Earth Simulator Center in Yokohama, Japan. Currently, he is the Group Leader of the Atmospheric and Ocean Simulation Research Group at the Earth Simulator Center.