TY - JOUR
T1 - Relationships among climatological vertical moisture structure, column water vapor, and precipitation over the central Amazon in observations and CMIP5 models
AU - Lintner, Benjamin R.
AU - Adams, David K.
AU - Schiro, Kathleen A.
AU - Stansfield, Alyssa M.
AU - Amorim Rocha, Alciélio A.
AU - Neelin, J. David
N1 - Funding Information:
Data were obtained from the following: CMIP5, PCMDI [http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/data_portal.html]; soundings, the University of Wyoming Department of Atmospheric Science [http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html]; and CMAP, NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA [http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/]. The authors thank Larry D. Oolman of the University of Wyoming for assistance with the soundings, Bryan Raney and Juan Perez Arango for assistance with downloading and formatting CMIP5 output, and Kyle Itterly for useful comments. This work was supported by Department of Energy grants DE-SC0011069 (B.R.L.) and DE-SC0011074 (K.A.S. and J.D.N.) and National Science Foundation grants AGS-1505198 (B.R.L.) and AGS-1540518 (K.A.S. and J.D.N.). A.S.'s participation was partially facilitated through the Rutgers Aresty Undergraduate Research Assistant program.
Publisher Copyright:
©2017. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2017/2/28
Y1 - 2017/2/28
N2 - Bias and spread in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 simulated vertical specific humidity (q) structure are examined and related to both precipitation and column water vapor (cwv) near Manaus, Brazil, site of the recent Green Ocean Amazon campaign. Simulated seasonal mean q profiles are typically too dry, especially at low levels and during the local dry season, consistent with previously identified surface hydroclimate biases in the Amazon. Multimodel empirical orthogonal function analysis of the models' monthly climatological q profiles indicates two significant modes of ensemble spread in moisture vertical structure, with the leading mode peaked at low levels and the second mode in the lower free troposphere (LFT). While both modes project onto simulated cwv spread, only the first projects on precipitation, suggesting inconsistent sensitivity of simulated rainfall to LFT moisture. Relative to observations, models with high cwv and low-level moisture errors tend to exhibit high precipitation error.
AB - Bias and spread in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 simulated vertical specific humidity (q) structure are examined and related to both precipitation and column water vapor (cwv) near Manaus, Brazil, site of the recent Green Ocean Amazon campaign. Simulated seasonal mean q profiles are typically too dry, especially at low levels and during the local dry season, consistent with previously identified surface hydroclimate biases in the Amazon. Multimodel empirical orthogonal function analysis of the models' monthly climatological q profiles indicates two significant modes of ensemble spread in moisture vertical structure, with the leading mode peaked at low levels and the second mode in the lower free troposphere (LFT). While both modes project onto simulated cwv spread, only the first projects on precipitation, suggesting inconsistent sensitivity of simulated rainfall to LFT moisture. Relative to observations, models with high cwv and low-level moisture errors tend to exhibit high precipitation error.
KW - Amazon
KW - CMIP5 models
KW - column water vapor
KW - precipitation
KW - vertical moisture structure
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U2 - 10.1002/2016GL071923
DO - 10.1002/2016GL071923
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85013393521
SN - 0094-8276
VL - 44
SP - 1981
EP - 1989
JO - Geophysical Research Letters
JF - Geophysical Research Letters
IS - 4
ER -