Regional climate model-simulated timing and character of seasonal rains in South America

Monthly Weather Review

Volumn 135, Issue 7, 2007, Pages 2642-2657

  Rauscher, Sara A ^a,b   Seth, Anji ^a,c   Liebmann, Brant ^d   Qian, Jian Hua ^a   Camargo, Suzana J ^a  

^a Earth Institute   (United States)

^b ABDUS SALAM INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS   (Italy)

^c UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT   (United States)

^d Climate Diagnostics Center ^*  (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE; COMPUTER SIMULATION; RAIN; STATISTICS;

CLIMATE MODEL SIMULATION; RAINFALL INTENSITY;

CLIMATOLOGY;

ANNUAL VARIATION; ATMOSPHERIC GENERAL CIRCULATION MODEL; CLIMATE MODELING; EL NINO-SOUTHERN OSCILLATION; ENSEMBLE FORECASTING; PRECIPITATION INTENSITY; REGIONAL CLIMATE; SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE; SEASONAL VARIATION;

BRAZIL; SOUTH AMERICA;

EID: 34547653878     PISSN: 00270644     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1175/MWR3424.1     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Arakawa, A., and W. H. Schubert, 1974: Interaction of a cumulus cloud ensemble with the large scale environment, Part I. J. Atmos. Sci., 31, 674-701.
2. Barnston, A. G., S. J. Mason, L. Goddard, D. G. DeWitt, and S. E. Zebiak, 2003: Multimodel ensembling in seasonal climate forecasting at IRI. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 1783-1796.
3. Berbery, E. H., and V. R. Barros, 2002: The hydrologic cycle of the La Plata Basin in South America. J. Hydrometeor., 3, 630-645.
4. Bonan, G. B., K. W. Oleson, M. Vertenstein, S. Levis, X. Zeng, Y. Dai, R. E. Dickinson, and Z.-L. Yang, 2002: The land surface climatology of the Community Land Model coupled to the NCAR Community Climate Model. J. Climate, 15, 3123-3149.
5. Carvalho, L. M. V., C. Jones, and B. Liebmann, 2004: The South Atlantic convergence zone: Intensity, form, persistence, and relationships with intraseasonal to interannual activity and extreme rainfall. J. Climate, 17, 88-108.
6. Emanuel, K. A., 1991: A scheme for representing cumulus convection in large-scale models. J. Atmos. Sci., 48, 2313-2329.
7. Emanuel, K. A., and M. Zivkovic-Rothman, 1999: Development and evaluation of a convection scheme for use in climate models. J. Atmos. Sci., 56, 1766-1782.
8. Figueroa, S. N., and C. A. Nobre, 1990: Precipitation distribution over central and western tropical South America. Climanálise, 5, 36-40.
9. Fouquart, Y., and B. Bonnel, 1980: Computation of solar heating of the Earth's atmosphere: A new parameterization. Beitr. Phys. Atmos., 53, 35-62.
10. Gan, M. A., V. E. Kousky, and C. F. Ropelewski, 2004: The South American monsoon circulation and its relationship to rainfall over west-central Brazil. J. Climate, 17, 47-66.
11. González, M., and V. Barros, 2002: On the forecast of the onset and end of the convective season in the Amazon. Theor. Appl. Climatol., 73, 169-187.
12. Grell, G., 1993: Prognostic evaluation of assumptions used by cumulus parameterizations. Mon. Wea. Rev., 121, 764-787.
13. Grell, G., J. Dudhia, and D. R. Stauffer, 1994: Description of the fifth generation Penn State/NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5). Tech. Rep. TN-398+STR, NCAR, Boulder, CO, 121 pp.
14. Grimm, A. M., V. R. Barros, and M. E. Doyle, 2000: Climate variability in southern South America associated with El Niño and La Niña events. J. Climate, 13, 35-58.
15. Hastenrath, S., and L. Heller, 1977: Dynamics of climatic hazards in Northeast Brazil. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 103, 77-92.
16. Horel, J. D., A. N. Hahmann, and J. E. Geisler, 1989: An investigation of the annual cycle of the convective activity over the tropical Americas. J. Climate, 2, 1388-1403.
17. Kalnay, E., and Coauthors, 1996: The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 77, 437-471.
18. Kodama, Y.-M., 1992: Large-scale common features of subtropical precipitation zones (the Baiu frontal zone, the SPCZ, and the SACZ). Part I: Characteristics of the subtropical frontal zones. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 70, 813-836.
19. Kodama, Y.-M., 1993: Large-scale common features of subtropical precipitation zones (the Baiu frontal zone, the SPCZ, and the SACZ). Part II: Conditions of the circulation for generating the STCZs. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 71, 581-610.
20. Kousky, V. E., 1979: Frontal influences on Northeast Brazil. Mon. Wea. Rev., 107, 1140-1153.
21. Kousky, V. E., 1988: Pentad outgoing long wave radiation climatology for the South America sector. Rev. Brasil Meteor., 3, 217-231.
22. Kousky, V. E., and R. W. Higgins, 2007: An alert classification system for monitoring and assessing the ENSO cycle. Wea. Forecasting, 22, 353-371.
23. Lemos, M. C., T. J. Finan, R. W. Fox, D. R. Nelson, and J. Tucker, 2002: The use of seasonal climate forecasting in policymaking: Lessons from Northeast Brazil. Climatic Change, 55, 479-507.
24. Li, W., R. Fu, and R. E. Dickinson, 2006: Rainfall and its seasonality over the Amazon in the 21st century as assessed by the coupled models for the IPCC AR4. J. Geophys. Res., 111, D02111, doi:10.1029/2005JD006355.
25. Liebmann, B., and J. A. Marengo, 2001: Interannual variability of the rainy season and rainfall in the Brazilian Amazon basin. J. Climate, 14, 4308-4318.
26. Liebmann, B., and D. Allured, 2005: Daily precipitation grids for South America. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 86, 1567-1570.
27. Liebmann, B., G. N. Kiladis, J. A. Marengo, T. Ambrizzi, and J. D. Glick, 1999: Submonthly convective variability over South America and the South Atlantic convergence zone. J. Climate, 12, 1877-1891.
28. Liebmann, B., S. J. Camargo, A. Seth, J. A. Marengo, L. M. V. Carvalho, D. Allured, R. Fu, and C. S. Vera, 2007: Onset and end of the rainy season in South America in observations and the ECHAM 4.5 Atmospheric General Circulation Model. J. Climate, 20, 2037-2050.
29. Marengo, J. A., B. Liebmann, V. E. Kousky, N. P. Filizola, and I. C. Wainer, 2001: Onset and end of the rainy season in the Brazilian Amazon basin. J. Climate, 14, 833-852.
30. Marengo, J. A., M. W. Douglas, and P. L. Silva Dias, 2002: The South American low-level jet east of the Andes during the 1999 LBA-TRMM and LBA-WET AMC campaign. J. Geophys. Res., 107, 8079, doi:10.1029/2001JD001188.
31. Marengo, J. A., W. R. Soares, C. Saulo, and M. Nicolini, 2004: Climatology of the low-level jet east of the Andes as derived from NCEP-NCAR reanalyses: Characteristics and temporal variability. J. Climate, 17, 2261-2280.
32. 2 results. Global Planet Change, 10, 55-78.
33. Morcrette, J.-J., L. Smith, and Y. Fouquart, 1986: Pressure and temperature dependence of the absorption in longwave radiation parameterizations. Beitr. Phys. Atmos., 59, 455-469.
34. Moura, A. D., and S. Hastenrath, 2004: Climate prediction for Brazils Nordeste: Performance of empirical and numerical modeling methods. J. Climate, 17, 2667-2672.
35. Nobre, P., A. D. Moura, and L. Sun, 2001: Dynamical downscaling of seasonal climate prediction over Nordeste Brazil with ECHAM3 and NCEP's regional spectral models at IRI. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 82, 2787-2796.
36. Nogues-Paegle, J., and Coauthors, 2002: Progress in pan American CLIVAR research: Understanding the South American monsoon. Meteorologica, 27, 3-32.
37. Paegle, J., 1998: A comparative review of South American low-level jets. Meteorologica, 23, 73-81.
38. Pal, J. S., and Coauthors, 2007: Regional climate modeling for the developing world: The ICTP RegCM3 and RegCNET. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., in press.
39. Palmer, T. N., and Coauthors, 2004: Development of a European Multimodel Ensemble for Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction (DEMETER). Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 85, 853-872.
40. Rauscher, S. A., A. Seth, J.-H. Qian, and S. J. Camargo, 2006: Domain choice in an experimental nested modeling prediction system for South America. Theor. Appl. Climatol., 86, 229-246.
41. Reynolds, R. W., N. A. Rayner, T. M. Smith, D. C. Stokes, and W. Wang, 2002: An improved in situ and satellite SST analysis for climate. J. Climate, 15, 1609-1625.
42. Roeckner, E., and Coauthors, 1996: The atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM-4: Model description and simulation of present day climate. Tech. Rep. 218, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, 90 pp.
43. Ropelewski, C. F., and M. S. Halpert, 1987: Global and regional scale precipitation patterns associated with the El El Niño/Southern Oscillation. Mon. Wea. Rev., 115, 1606-1626.
44. Ropelewski, C. F., and M. S. Halpert, 1989: Precipitation patterns associated with the high index phase of the Southern Oscillation. J. Climate, 2, 268-284.
45. Seth, A., M. Rojas, B. Liebmann, and J.-H. Qian, 2004: Daily rainfall analysis for South America from a regional climate model and station observations. Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L07213, doi:10/1029/ 2003GL019220.
46. Seth, A., S. A. Rauscher, S. J. Camargo, J.-H. Qian, and J. S. Pal, 2006: RegCM regional climatologies for South America using Reanalysis and ECHAM global model driving fields. Climate Dyn., 28, 461-480.
47. Sun, L., D. F. Moncunill, H. Li, A. D. Moura, and F. A. S. Filho, 2005: Climate downscaling over Nordeste, Brazil, using the NCEP RSM97. J. Climate, 18, 551-567.
48. Sun, L., D. F. Moncunill, H. Li, A. D. Moura, F. A. S. Filho, and S. E. Zebiak, 2006: An operational dynamical downscaling prediction system for Nordeste Brazil and the 2002-04 real-time forecast evaluation. J. Climate, 19, 1990-2007.
49. Tiedtke, M., 1989: A comprehensive mass flux scheme for cumulus parameterization on large scale models. Mon. Wea. Rev., 117, 1779-1800.
50. Vera, C., P. K. Vigliarolo, and E. H. Berbery, 2002: Cold season synoptic-scale waves over subtropical South America. Mon. Wea. Rev., 130, 684-699.
51. Vera, C., and Coauthors, 2006: The South American low-level jet experiment. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 87, 63-77.
52. Virji, H., 1981: A preliminary study of summertime tropospheric circulation patterns over South America estimated from cloud winds. Mon. Wea. Rev., 109, 599-610.
53. Wang, H., and R. Fu, 2002: Cross-equatorial flow and seasonal cycle of precipitation over South America. J. Climate, 15, 1591-1608.
54. Xie, P., and P. A. Arkin, 1996: Analyses of global monthly precipitation using gauge observations, satellite estimates, and numerical model predictions. J. Climate, 9, 840-858.
55. Zhou, J., and K.-M. Lau, 1998: Does a monsoon climate exist over South America? J. Climate, 11, 1020-1040.
56. Zhou, J., and K.-M. Lau, 2002: Intercomparison of model simulations of the impact of 1997/98 El Niño on South American summer monsoon. Meteorologica, 27, 99-116.