Stationary Wave Maintainance and Sensitivity to Climate Change in GCMs

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

ATM-0000585 Ting, Mingfang University of Illinois Title: Stationary Wave Maintenance and Sensitivity to Climate Change in GCMs The primary objective of the proposed work is to understand how climatological stationary waves are maintained in the AMIP-2 participating GCMs and how stationary waves respond to greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere. A secondary objective is to understand the linkage between the trend in the Arctic Oscillation(AO) which is the leading mode of the month-to-month variability in Northern Hemisphere sea level pressure, and the stationary wave changes in response to green house gas increases. The research is motivated by the fact that stationary waves determine regional climate conditions and are hence a key determinant of regional climate change. Different GCMs tend to give inconsistent regional climate simulations and regional climate predictions. These differences arise primarily because of differences in model physical parameterizations, in particular the convective parameterization schemes. The work is important because it will lead to better understanding into how best to utilize information provided by GCM experiments using greenhouse gas forcing.