Proposal

1. Proposal Scientific Advisory Committee Meeting 12 April 2010

2. “Omnibus” Funding COLA is a private, non-profit research institute supported by NSF (lead), NOAA and NASA through a single jointly-peer-reviewed *, jointly-funded five-year proposal. 2009-2014 Predictability of the Physical Climate System Funding: ~$3.6 M / yr Principal Investigator: Kinter Co-Investigators: Cash, DelSole, Dirmeyer, Huang, Jin, Klinger, Krishnamurthy, Schneider, Shukla, Straus 2004-2008 Predictability of Earth’s Climate Funding: ~$3.25M / yr (NSF - 46%; NOAA - 39%; NASA - 15%) Principal Investigator: Shukla Co-Investigators: DelSole, Dirmeyer, Huang, Kinter, Kirtman, Klinger, Krishnamurthy, Misra, Schneider, Schopf, Straus 1999-2003 Predictability and Variability of the Present Climate Funding: ~$2.75M / yr Principal Investigator: J. Shukla Co-PIs: J. Kinter, E. Schneider, P. Schopf, D. Straus Co-investigators: P. Dirmeyer, B. Huang, B. Kirtman 1994-1998 Predictability and Variability of the Present Climate Funding: $2.25M /yr Principal Investigator: J. Shukla Co-PIs: J. Kinter, E. Schneider, D. Straus * Thanks to our peers and the agencies

3. Proposed Work: 2009-2014 • COMPREHENSIVE PREDICTABILITY FRAMEWORK • Hypothesis: predictability is associated with either initial conditions or coupling among system components • PREDICTABILITY OF SUBSEASONAL TO INTERANNUAL CLIMATE VARIATIONS • Predictability of the Total Climate System • Interannual Predictability of ENSO • Interannual Predictability of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans • Toward Process-Resolving Models For Climate Prediction • EXTENDING S-I PREDICTABILITY STUDIES TO DECADAL PREDICTABILITY

4. CAM GFS GEOS Sfc Fluxes1 Sfc Fluxes2 Sfc FluxesN SST GFDL OGCM Ensemble of 3 AGCMs all receive same OGCM-output SST each day … … … N1 N2 N3 average (1, …, N) Average N = N1+N2+N3 members’ surface fluxes each day Ensemble Mean Sfc Fluxes OGCM receives ensemble average of AGCM output fluxes each day Multi-Model Interactive Ensemble

5. Proposed Work: 2009-2014 • COMPREHENSIVE PREDICTABILITY FRAMEWORK • Hypothesis: predictability is associated with either initial conditions or coupling among system components • PREDICTABILITY OF SUBSEASONAL TO INTERANNUAL CLIMATE VARIATIONS • Predictability of the Total Climate System • Interannual Predictability of ENSO • Interannual Predictability of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans • Toward Process-Resolving Models For Climate Prediction • EXTENDING S-I PREDICTABILITY STUDIES TO DECADAL PREDICTABILITY

6. The Athena Project • NSF impetus: Supercomputer availability and interest in outcome of 2008 World Modeling Summit • COLA role: formed and led an international collaboration involving over 30 peoplein 6 groupson 3 continents • Hypothesis: Exploring high spatial resolution and process-resolving models can dramatically alter simulation of climate • Two state-of-the-art global AGCMs at the highest possible spatial resolution • Dedicated supercomputerat NICS for Oct’09 – Mar’10 • Data ~900 TB total • Long term - model output data will be invaluable for large community of climate scientists (unprecedented resolution and simulation duration) and computational scientists (lessons learned from running dedicated production at nearly petascale)

7. Athena Experiments

8. Verifying Unprecedented Resolution • Some summer convection events originating on the Front Range of the Rockies self-organize into MCCs that then can propagate across the GP, independent of the original energy source (insolation), eventually expending their energy between the Rockies and the Ohio Valley. How can we verify this feature? • MERRA does not reproduce this feature. • No MCCs in GEOS-5? • Incremental Analysis Update obscures self-organization and propagation, by smearing out the "forcing" from observations over the 6-hour assimilation window? • By rigorous analysis of MERRA in the context of high-resolution models that can represent the diurnal phase propagation, one can help understand deficiencies in the reanalysis, or the GEOS-5 model, or both.

9. Proposed Work: 2009-2014 • COMPREHENSIVE PREDICTABILITY FRAMEWORK • Hypothesis: predictability is associated with either initial conditions or coupling among system components • PREDICTABILITY OF SUBSEASONAL TO INTERANNUAL CLIMATE VARIATIONS • Predictability of the Total Climate System • Interannual Predictability of ENSO • Interannual Predictability of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans • Toward Process-Resolving Models For Climate Prediction • EXTENDING S-I PREDICTABILITY STUDIES TO DECADAL PREDICTABILITY

10. Decadal Predictability Questions • What is the relative importance of the initial state, initialization, and anthropogenic forcing? • How are physical mechanisms in the Pacific and Atlantic altered by anthropogenic forcing? What is the origin and impact of the large trend in SST in the Indian Ocean? • Are climate regime transitions (e.g. 1976) predictable? • Are apparent decadal oscillations (AMO, PDO, ENSO modulations, monsoons) predictable? • Can the characteristics or distribution of extreme events be predicted at decadal leads?

11. Planned Experiments • 20-year integrations of CFS1.0 and CFS2.0 - collaboration with NCEP • Close coordination with runs being made by other groups (CLIVAR plan) • Extensions of seasonal retrospective prediction runs made by NCEP • Control ensemble with fixed external forcing (GHG and aerosols) and experimental ensemble with time-varying forcing • Using PICNTRL and 21st century runs as controls, CCSM runs with perturbed air-sea flux, such as adding the observed zonal wind stress trend to force the OGCM over the Southern Ocean or removing the heat and freshwater flux trends associated with global warming • COLA participants: Schneider, Lu, Klinger, Huang, Cash, DelSole, Marx

12. Broader Impacts: Education, Outreach and Training • GMU Ph.D. Programin Climate Dynamics • Training for Post-Doctoral Scientists at COLA and collaborating labs, scientists from developing countries at ICTP • Visitors, Lectures and Seminars • Workshops • Summer Internship Program • Real-Time Climate Forecasts • GrADSand GDS • COLA Technical Reports • Web Pages • Panels and Working Groups