Collaborative Research: Tropical Waves and Intertropical Convergence Zones in Simulations with Explicit Convection

这个合作项目将采用对流模式来研究海洋上的热带辐合带（ITCZ），它们与热带波的相互作用，以及对对流和中尺度过程的依赖。主要的建模工具将是天气研究与预报（WRF）系统，该系统已得到增强，可以作为高分辨率嵌套热带通道运行，也可以作为低分辨率模式运行，并使用云分辨模式作为对流的“超参数化”。这种独特的模式框架允许使用标准对流参数化、超参数化或云分辨水平分辨率对模拟的itcz和对流耦合波进行并排比较。一套理想的云分辨实验将被执行，以验证涡旋的水平混合倾向于使ITCZ比没有涡旋时更宽更弱的假设。与对流相关的热带偏倚是全球大气模式中误差和不确定性的主要来源，因此在这一领域的理解的进步将导致广泛的天气和气候应用的改进。该项目将支持一名大气科学研究生的教育和培训。WRF模型的超参数化版本最终将提供给更广泛的大气科学界的研究人员。因此，更广泛的影响是巨大的。

This collaborative project will employ models with explicit convection to study Intertropical Convergence Zones (ITCZ) over the oceans, their interactions with tropical waves, and the dependence of both on convective and mesoscale processes. The primary modeling tool will be the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) system, which has been augmented to run either as a high-resolution nested tropical channel or as a lower-resolution model with a cloud-resolving model used as a "superparameterization" for convection. This unique model framework allows side-by-side comparisons of simulated ITCZs and convectively coupled waves using standard convection parameterizations, superparameterization, or cloud-resolving horizontal resolution. A suite of idealized cloud-resolving experiments will be performed to test the hypothesis that horizontal mixing by eddies tends to make the ITCZ broader and weaker than it would be in their absence.Convection-related tropical biases are a major source of error and uncertainty in global atmosphere models, so advances in understanding in this area should lead to improvements in a wide array of weather and climate applications. The project will support the education and training of an atmospheric sciences graduate student. The superparameterized version of the WRF model will eventually be made available to researchers in the broader atmospheric science community. Thus the broader impacts are substantial.