Tropical Convection and The Weather Climate Interface Retreat Summary
A Tropical Convection and The Weather Climate Interface Retreat covering the interface between weather and climate was held at NCAR 10 - 14 July 2006. The organizing committee consisted of:
David Parsons - 303.497.8749,
TllMES & EOL
Mitch Moncrieff - 303.497.8960,
MMM
Joe Tribbia - 303.497.1377,
CGD
Brian Mapes - 305.421.4275,
University of Miami
Chidong Zhang - 305.421.4042,
University of Miami
A Weather-Climate Interface activity funded by a THORPEX Director's Opportunity Fund Proposal.
The focus of this retreat will be tropical convection and its two-way interaction with the larger-scales. By two-way scale interactions we mean how the large-scale initiates and organizes deep tropical convective systems and how the effects of organized convection in turn impacts larger-scale circulations. This topic was selected since uncertainties in the treatment of tropical convection and its interaction with the large-scale remain a fundamental barrier to both improved weather prediction and climate projections on time-scales of days to years. The difficulties in our treatment of tropical convection in numerical simulations are manifested in a number of ways including difficulties in obtaining an accurate representation of the lifetime, propagation, and structure (e.g., convective vs. stratiform rainfall) of organized deep, convective systems in the tropics. The evidence also includes inaccurate representation of how tropical convection interacts the atmospheric phenomena on time and space scales ranging from the diurnal cycle to the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) and the onset of major monsoon systems. These uncertainties in the treatment of persistent deep convection in the tropics, in turn, have global significance through events ranging from high-impact weather in the middle latitudes associated with propagating Rossby wave trains to the critical role tropical convection may play in the initiation and amplification of El Nino and in interdecadal climate variability.
Advancements on this topic have the possibility to lower a fundamental barrier to weather prediction and climate projection making this problem (and others at the interface of weather and climate) of extreme relevance to society. New opportunities now exist, these include: (i) recent theoretical advances, diagnostic studies and observational analysis, (ii) increased computing power and the ability to run high-resolution cloud-system resolving models over large enough areas and times to capture critical scale interactions, and (iii) new remotely sensed (space borne and surface based) and in situ observations of clouds and precipitation .
This retreat will provide a forum for cross-institution and interdisciplinary discussions with the intent of providing a clear statement of research priorities for advancement on this subject through collaboration between the academic community, NCAR and strategic partnerships with other institutions. A written summary of the activities of this retreat will be presented to NCAR management, NSF program managers and, through the US THORPEX Executive Board to other U.S. agencies involved in funding weather and climate research. |
