Lisa Goddard U.S. CLIVAR SSC Chair International Research Institute for Climate and Society

1. US CLIVAR Report CLIVAR SSG-18 UNESCO, Paris May 3, 2011 Lisa Goddard U.S. CLIVAR SSC Chair International Research Institute for Climate and Society Columbia University goddard@iri.columbia.edu Mike Patterson Interim Director, US CLIVAR Project Office mpatterson@usclivar.org

2. US CLIVAR Goals • Identifying and understanding the major patterns of climate variability on seasonal, decadal and longer time scales and evaluating their predictability • Evaluating and improving the models used for prediction and projection to project climate change due to human activity, including anthropogenically induced changes in atmospheric composition • Expanding our capacity in short term (seasonal-to-interannual) climate prediction and searching for ways to provide information on decadal variability • Better documenting rapid climate changes and the mechanisms for these events, and evaluating the potential for abrupt climate changes in the future • Detecting and describing high impact climate variability and change

3. US CLIVAR Structure Intl. CLIVAR SSG Intl. CLIVAR Office Intl. CLIVAR Panels Working Groups Salinity Madden Julian Oscillation Western Boundary Current Drought High Latitude Surface Fluxes Decadal Predictability Hurricane Greenland Ice Sheet/Ocean Interactions

4. US CLIVAR Recent Achievements • 4 new Climate Process Teams (CPTs) started in 2010 • Ocean Boundary Mixing • Sea Ice/Ocean Mixing • Stratocumulus to Cumulus Transition • Cloud Macrophysical Parameterization • Climate Model Evaluation Projects awarded for CMIP5 analysis (26 funded) • Integrated Earth System Analysis (IESA) workshop November 2010; FY11 small grants program for analyzing reanalysis products • Atlantic MOC activity has grown (40 projects); planning underway for AMOC observing elements in the northern subpolar and southern Atlantic • DYNAMO (MJO initiation) & SPURS (ocean salinity) projects awarded and field campaigns moving forward

5. US Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Objectives: • Design and implementation of an AMOC monitoring system • Assessment of AMOC’s role in the global climate • Assessment of AMOC variabiltiy mechanisms and predictability • International collaborations: UK RAPID, EU, Germany THOR • Key Developments: • Increase in number of projects (40) • Observations, modeling, OSEs, assimilation, processes, etc • N. Atlantic Sub-Polar Obs. Workshop, April 2010 (Durham • Identified motivation and design of a N Atlantic subpolar gyre obs system (OSNAP) from Labrador to Greenland • AMOC, THOR, plus carbon and biological communities • SAMOC 3 Workshop, May 2010 (Rio) • Planning of 35S cross-basin line • Third AMOC Science Team workshop, June 2010 (Miami); Third Annual US AMOC Report published February 2010 • Joint RAPID-AMOC Science meeting July 2011 (Bristol) US AMOC contributions in black; International contributions in red.

6. Dynamics of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (DYNAMO) Objectives: • Collect in situ observations from the equatorial Indian Ocean that are urgently needed to advance our understanding of the processes key to MJO initiation and to improve their representations in models; • Identify critical deficiencies in models that are responsible for the low prediction skill and poor simulations of MJO initiation, and assist the broad community effort of improving model parameterization; • Provide guiding information to enhance MJO monitoring and prediction capacities that deliver climate prediction and assessment products on intraseasonal timescales for risk management and decision making over the global tropics. • Field Campaigns: DYNAMO and CINDY2011 (September 2011 – January 2012) • Participating countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, ECMWF, India, Japan, UK, US • Key developments: • Indian Ocean Piracy Exclusion Zone Boundary -- extended from 65E to 78E engulfing the Maldives Chain at 73E and the western 2/3 of experimental array • Japanese report an additional $200K in insurance to operate the Mirai in the zone. • DYNAMO SSC reexamining ports to use and examining alternate configurations and the potential impact on science objectives if there is a need to move a few degrees eastward. • Indians increasing their patrols of the Maldives; ONR monitoring and assessing from military perspective. • Decision to operate vessels during the experiment will ultimately be up to the ship Captains. • Fuel Costs – With the recent increases in fuel costs, the SSC is evaluating the impact on port calls and transit to station versus on-station conduct of science. • Japan earthquake/tsunami disaster could impact Japanese participation in the experiment. • US agencies remain committed to the experiment and will continue to monitor the evolution of the various issues as they unfold.

7. Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS) An upper-ocean freshwater field campaign in the salinity maximum region of the Subtropical North Atlantic planned for March 2012 Spatially nested structure in both the observational and model approaches: • Large scale – entire subtropical regime and its relationship to the AMOC • Regional scale ~1000 km, represents the salty subtropical convergence regime • Small scale ~100 km (comparable to the Aquarius footprint) investigates the details of the sub-mesoscale physical processes affecting the surface layer and subduction of the S-max water NASA support of glider array, modeling, data management, planning 3-4 cruises, 30 to 40-days each; possibility of Spanish, Irish and German ships

8. Potential US Contribution to IASCLIP Continuously Operating Caribbean GPS Observational Network (COCONet) • Adds 50 GPS stations around perimeter of the Caribbean basin; installation over the next three years • NSF Support through Tectonics Program ~$7M/5 years; Small Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences funding contribution • produces precipitable water vapor (PW) estimates at 30- minute time steps • provides continuous observations of surface temperature and pressure, relative humidity, horizontal winds, and precipitation

9. US CLIVAR Strategic Directions/Planning • US CLIVAR moving ahead on decadal variability,extremes, and climate of polar regions themes • Decadal Predictability Working Group • Greenland Ice Sheet-Ocean Interactions Working Group • Hurricane Working Group • Research Colloquium on Extremes under Global Warming • New theme on physical climate system interactions with carbon cycle, ocean biogeochemistry and marine ecosystems to be explored at July 2011 Summit in Woods Hole, MA • How do changes in the physical ocean circulation and heat content affect the magnitudes and distributions of ocean carbon sources and sinks on seasonal to centennial time scales? • What are the coupled physical/biogeochemical processes and feedbacks that contribute to determining the future state of heat and carbon sources and sinks and ecosystem structure? • What will be the future atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and other carbon-containing greenhouse gases, and how will marine carbon sources and sinks change in response to anthropogenic forcing in the future? • SSC to initiate science planning for post-2014 period during Summit

10. Decadal Predictability Working Group Chairs: Lisa Goddard (IRI/Columbia); Arun Kumar (NOAA/NCEP); Amy Solomon (UCO) • Objectives: • Define a framework to distinguish natural decadal variability from anthropogenically forced variability and to quantify their relative magnitude • Develop a framework for understanding decadal variability through metrics that can be used as a strategy to assess and validate decadal climate predictions simulations • Published a February 2011 BAMS article describing • existing methodologies to separate decadal natural variability from anthropogenically forced variability, • the degree to which those efforts have succeeded, and • the ways in which the methods are limited or challenged by existing data. • Currently developing White Paper on for consistent metrics framework for evaluation of decadal simulations (as input to AR5 Chapter 11)

11. Greenland Ice Sheet/Ocean Interactions Working Group Chairs: Fiamma Straneo, WHOI; Olga Sergienko, Princeton Univ.; Patrick Heimback, MIT • Objectives: • Foster and promote inter- • action between the diverse • oceanographic, glaciological, • atmospheric, and climate (modeling and observational) communities • interested in glacier/ocean interactions around Greenland • Advance understanding of processes and improve their representation in climate models • The WG is drafting paper for submission to EOS or BAMS summarizing the state of knowledge and research on GIS/ocean interactions, • presenting various disciplinary perspectives, • enumerating key science questions, and • proposing options on how the community may proceed. • A limited participation workshop next Winter/Spring 2012.

12. US CLIVAR Hurricane Working Group Chairs: Gabriel Vecchi, GFDL; Suzana Camargo, LDEO; Kevin Walsh, Univ. of Melbourne, Australia • To coordinate efforts to produce a set of model experiments • designed to improve understanding of the variability of tropical • cyclone formation in climate models • Scientific Objectives: • Improve understanding of interannual variability and trends in • tropical cyclone activity from the beginning of the 20th • century to the present • Quantify changes in the characteristics of tropical cyclones • under a warming climate • The WG is coordinating a set of GCM experiments with a common set of forcings and provide the output for use by the research, prediction and applications communities. • Noting that the work would be useful in interpreting CMIP5 results, a near-term aim is to complete publication(s) for inclusion in the upcoming AR5.

13. US CLIVAR/NCAR ASP Researcher Colloquium Statistical Assessment of Extreme Weather Phenomena under Climate Change NCAR Foothills Lab, Boulder, Colorado, USAJune 13-17, 2011 http://www.asp.ucar.edu/colloquium/2011/index.php Participation of ~80 researchers, decision makers and students studying extreme events in observations and climate models; statistical modeling and identification of extremes; and use of climate extremes in a suite of decision and policy making contexts. • Objectives • Determine climate and weather extremes that are crucial in resources management and policy making • Identify the current state of the science of climate and weather extremes including uncertainties and information gaps in real-world applications • Obtain insights into the capabilities of climate models in identifying and modeling such extreme events. • Assess efficacy of statistical methods and tools to analyze and model extreme events under climate change • Develop interdisciplinary research directions in modeling and application of climate extremes

14. Links to International CLIVAR • Mapping of US CLIVAR goals to international CLIVAR goals and imperatives • Cross-fertilization of scientists in planning efforts • Participation of US scientists on international panels • Participation of international scientists in US working groups and workshops • - Decadal Predictability (Hadley Centre, Canadian Climate Center) • - Hurricanes (CMCC INGV/Italy, MPI/Germany, JAMSTEC/Japan, Hadley Centre/UK, SNU/South Korea) • Follow-on to US Working Group activities • Drought Interest Group (DIG) • DYNAMO • US CLIVAR benefits from: • Global observation and modeling Panels for data and tools • Regional/basin Panels for multilateral coordination

15. Thank You