Analysis of Northern New England Cold-Air Damming Events

冷空气坝是一种现象，某些风向会导致冷空气被困在山上。在美国东部，这些事件通常伴随着降水，在冬季尤其危险，因为降雪和冻雨很常见。这些事件的强度很难预测，而且对新英格兰北部山区的冷空气阻塞事件的科学关注较少。该奖项将允许研究团队开发气候学，并对冷空气阻塞事件进行数值模拟，以回答有关其形成、演变和消散的问题。这项研究的结果应该有助于改善与冷空气阻塞有关的高影响冬季降水事件的预测。一些研究生和本科生将参与这项研究，帮助培养下一代科学家。研究小组将对新英格兰北部的冷空气阻塞（CAD）事件进行为期15年的气候学和综合研究，目的是确定事件发生的时间和最强烈的时间，在选定地点的事件比较情况，以及CAD对降水类型的作用。使用WRF模式对CAD事件的综合模拟将有助于回答CAD数值天气预报对初始条件不确定性和参数化方案变化的敏感性相关问题。模拟还将有助于回答有关CAD的形成、强度、范围、演变和侵蚀的可预测性问题。

Cold air damming is a phenomenon where certain wind directions can cause cooler air to be trapped against a mountain. In the eastern US, these events are often accompanied by precipitation, and can be especially hazardous in winter with snowfall and freezing rain common. The intensity of these events is difficult to forecast and less scientific attention has been paid to cold air damming events in the mountainous areas of northern New England. This award will allow the research team to develop a climatology and conduct numerical modeling of cold air damming events in order to answer questions about their formation, evolution, and dissipation. The results of the study should help to improve forecasts of high-impact winter precipitation events related to cold air damming. A number of graduate and undergraduate students will be involved in the research, helping to develop the next generation of scientists.The research team will develop a 15-year climatology and composite study of northern New England cold air damming (CAD) events with a goal of determining when the events occur and when they are most intense, how the events compare at selected locations, and what the role of CAD is on precipitation types. Ensembles of simulations of CAD events using the WRF model will help to answer questions related to the sensitivity of numerical weather prediction forecasts of CAD to initial condition uncertainty and variations in parameterization schemes. The simulations will also help to answer questions about predictability of the formation, strength, extent, evolution, and erosion of CAD.