Session #3 Abstracts

Effects of Ozone on Stratospheric Wave-mean Flow Interaction

John Albers, Terrence Nathan

A large volume of research has been devoted to the role that troposphere-generated planetary scale waves play as a dynamical mechanism driving the stratospheric circulation. Equally well-known is the significant role that planetary scale waves play in the passive transport of middle atmosphere constituents such as ozone. Yet, despite the seemingly intricate link between these two phenomenon, little work has been done exploring the dynamical link between ozone photochemistry and the dynamics of the wave-driven stratospheric circulation. Recent work has shown that the dynamic interaction between ozone photochemistry and Kelvin and Rossby-gravity waves plays an important role in modulating the tropical quasi-biennial oscillation.
In this study we extend this work by considering the impact of wave-ozone feedbacks on the modulation of both troposphere-generated planetary waves and the zonally averaged wind in the extratropical stratosphere. Results are generated using a quasi-geostropic beta-plane model incorporating equations for ozone photochemistry, mean zonal wind and potential vorticity. Results are viewed in the context of the interactions between wave-mean flow and wave-ozone feedbacks and the stratospheric circulation.

Some statistical diagnostics to evaluate the Madden-Julian Oscillation in the MM5 model

Erwan Monier, Bryan C. Weare

The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is the dominant component of intraseasonal variability in the Tropics. Since the 1980s, the MJO has received a great deal of attention in part because of its impact on weather systems around the globe. A lot of work has been devoted in the accurate simulating and forecasting of the MJO, which has become the holy grail of tropical atmospheric dynamics and has not ceased to be a challenge for the modeling community. Various studies have focused on comparing or evaluating models, whether global climate, regional and multiscale models, as well as analyzing the effectiveness of their parameterizations and schemes. For example, the MM5 v.3 regional model was shown to capture the dominant features of the MJO, such as the observed location of convection, its eastward propagation and the strong first baroclinic structure of the MJO (Gustafson and Weare 2004). However, in this previous study, the statistical techniques used to analyze the model results did not follow any systematic and standardized diagnostics, developed in subsequent years, such as the procedure described by Zhang (2005). Besides, the width of the domain allowed only waves up to a size of global wavenumber 3 to develop without crossing the boundaries, while the observed MJO is dominated by wavenumbers 1 3. At last, a single dataset, the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis, was used to force the initial and boundary conditions of the model. Since uncertainties in the accuracy of the input data could impact on the simulated MJO, the use of another dataset could yield interesting results. For these reasons, in this study, the MM5 model was ran with the ECMWF ERA-40 reanalysis dataset for a time period of 26 months, over the tropics (22.5°S-22.5°N) and half the globe in longitude (15°E-197.5°E). The aim of this study is to use a standardized statistical procedure to assess the realism of the simulated MJO, in particular the MJO convection-wind coupling. Results show that upper- and lower-level zonal winds are very well reproduced, as they display the correct MJO spatial and vertical structure, phase speed and space-time power spectrum. On the other hand, the model output exhibits a lack of organization and a weak propagation in the OLR, specific humidity and precipitation. Overall, this study reveals that the MM5 model is able to reproduce effectively the MJO circulation without the associated convection.

CoSaMP:Iterative Signal Recovery from Incomplete and Inaccurate Samples

Deanna Needell, Joel Tropp

Compressible signal recovery arises in many applications from medical imaging to data mining. Given a signal compressible with respect to some orthonormal basis, we wish to reconstruct the signal accurately from few linear measurements. In this talk I will discuss the major approaches to this recovery as well as a new algorithm CoSaMP which provides the advantages from both approaches and is thus optimal in every important aspect.

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