ATlantic MOdel Studies - Modelling of the air-sea interaction over the Gulf Stream and North Atlanic Current fronts
ACRONYM
ATMOS
Title
ATlantic MOdel Studies - Modelling of the air-sea interaction over the Gulf Stream and North Atlanic Current fronts
General information
The goal of ATMOS is to improve the understanding of processes affecting North Atlantic climate, concentrating on air-sea interaction over the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current fronts. These regions are associated with the release of a large amount of heat and moisture to the atmosphere at the entry region to the North Atlantic storm track and thus could be important players for determining low-frequency variability (decadal time scales) and predictability of the climate in the North Atlantic region and beyond.
The role of this region for making long-range (seasonal and decadal) predictions of the atmosphere has been topic of several studies in the past (e.g. Ratcliffe and Murray (1970), Palmer and Sun (1985), Rodwell et al. (1999), Rodwell and Folland (2002)). Interest has recently been revived by Minobe et al. (2008) who have shown the importance of resolving the Gulf Stream front for the successful simulation of the rainfall climatology in this region, contrasting the atmospheric response to a high versus a low resolution representation of the front in an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM).
The questions to be adressed within ATMOS are in particular:
- What role does the resolution of the SST forcing play for the response of the AGCM?
- What local atmospheric patterns go along with specific SST patterns and is there any evidence for teleconnections emerging from this region in the model?
Start
September, 2011
End
August, 2015
Funding (total)
-
Funding (GEOMAR)
214000
Funding body / Programme
-
BMBF
/
Coordination
null
Contact
