Collaborative Research: VOCALS--Structure and Mechanisms of Coupled General Circulation Models' Systematic Biases in Southeast Pacific

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This project is a contribution to VOCALS (the VAMOS Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study).The primary goal is to improve our understanding of the structure and mechanisms of the systematic biases in the Southeast Pacific (SEP) in coupled general circulation models (CGCMs). Simulations by CGCMs and ocean GCMs will be compared with the extensive measurements from the Variability of the American MOnsoon Systems (VAMOS) Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study (VOCALS) Regional Experiment (REx) and long-term observational datasets. The simulations of 24 CGCMs participating in the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) will be examined, together with forced experiments using one ocean GCM. The investigators will diagnose the structure and mechanisms of the biases in stratocumulus clouds and surface fluxes in the SEP in all 24 IPCC AR4 CGCMs, analyze the upper ocean currents, thermal structures and heat budget in this region in these models, examine their air-sea coupling processes in this region, especially how well the ocean-atmosphere feedbacks are simulated, and conduct forced ocean GCM experiments to examine the sensitivity of upper ocean processes to atmospheric forcings relevant to the biases in the AGCMs.Broader impacts of this work are in its potential implications for improving global climate models. Proper representation of ocean-atmosphere-land coupled processes in the stratocumulus deck region in global climate models is a major challenge for their further improvement. The project will promote interdisciplinary training through support of a graduate student.