Collaborative Research: Regional climate-change projections through next-generation empirical and dynamical models - ID:120

Project Description

The development of a twin approach of non-homogeneous hidden Markov models and coupled ocean-atmosphere, intermediate-complexity models to identify the potentially predictable modes of climate variability and to investigate their impacts on the regional scale.

Goals and Objectives

• Assessment of uncertainties in atmosphere-ocean GCM (AOGCM) climate-change projections at the scale of local rainfall statistics
• Assessment of candidate schemes with respect to potential predictability and prediction skill at decadal time scales, using empirical and intermediate dynamical models
• Estimation of potential biases in current global climate projections due to lack of active eddy dynamics in state-of-the-art AOGCMs
• Development of parallel, scalable Bayesian estimation software for a family of NHMM and EMR models

Outputs

• Methodology to assess the uncertainties in AOGCM climate-change projections at the scale of local rainfall statistics
• An assessment of that uncertainty in IPCC AR-4 AOGCMs over India
• Methodology to assess decadal potential predictability using empirical and intermediate dynamical models
• An assessment of decadal potential predictability and skill
• An assessment of potential biases in global climate projections due to lack of active eddy dynamics in state-of-the-art AOGCMS
• Parallel, scalable Bayesian estimation software for a family of NHMM and EMR models for multi-processor computers, from desktops to large numbers of processors

Currently Available Outputs:

Greene, A.M., A.W. Robertson, and S. Kirshner, 2008. Analysis of Indian monsoon daily rainfall on subseasonal to multidecadal time-scales using a hidden Markov model. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 134 (633), 875-887. DOI: 10.1002/qj.254..

Moron, V., A. Lucero, F. Hilario, B. Lyon, A. Robertson, and D. DeWitt, 2009: Spatio-temporal variability and predictability of summer monsoon onset over the Philippines. Climate Dynamics, doi:10.1007/s00382-008-0520-5.

Moron, V., A.W. Robertson, M.N. Ward, and O. Ndiaye, 2008: Weather Types and Rainfall over Senegal. Part I: Observational Analysis. J. Climate, 21, 266-287, doi: 10.1175/2007JCLI1601.1.
Moron, V., A.W. Robertson, M.N. Ward, and O. Ndiaye, 2008: Weather Types and Rainfall over Senegal. Part II: Downscaling of GCM Simulations. J. Climate, 21, 288-307, doi: 10.1175/2007JCLI1624.1.
Robertson, A. W., V. Moron, and Y. Swarinoto, 2009: Seasonal predictability of daily rainfall statistics over Indramayu district, Indonesia. International Journal of Climatology, 29, 1449-1462, doi:10.1002/joc.1816.