Planning for a BAMS paper on climate reanalysis

Created by heather.archambault on - Updated on 07/18/2016 10:13

Questions for the task force on planning a BAMS paper: 



What are climate reanalyses for? Needs, Uses, and Prospects

 

1. What should the scope of the paper be?

What are reanalyses for? van den Dool presentation.

How do the needs for a reanalysis influence the design of the system. Weather Prediction/Reforecast compared to Climate monitoring, diagnostics, and attribution compared to decadal forecasting compared to driving ancillary models (e.g., agricultural, land, ecosystem)

What are reanalyses good for? How do identified issues with reanalyses match with what the community would like to use them for?

How can we make them match? Improved models, improved algorithms, coupled data assimilation?

Draft abstract:

Reanalyses are the most widely used datasets to study atmospheric, terrestrial, and oceanic variability. They have tremendous potential value, especially in data-sparse regions where direct observations are difficult to obtain.  Most reanalyses have been carried out separately in the atmosphere, ocean, and land systems.  This approach is partly historical, partly a result of the different scientific communities involved and their different goals, partly to simplify the calculation, and partly because these systems are observed in vastly different ways.  There is an urgent need for progress on reanalyses focused on climate related goals and on greater integration among system components. Initial conditions and verification are needed for the growing area of sub-seasonal to seasonal to decadal forecasts.  Consistent and reliable long-term trends are needed to document and monitor the temporal and spatial evolution of the climate system and to verify and validate climate model simulations and projections.  There has been a tremendous expansion of the observing systems and computational capability that has supported development of sophisticated data assimilation schemes.  Methods and strategies that cope with this expansion are under development. There is also growing appreciation of the need to quantify surface fluxes, which are likely estimated best using a coupled system.   The purpose of this article is to compare and contrast current systems, particularly at NOAA and NASA, articulate specific goals for reanalyses intended for climate studies, Earth system analysis and forecasting, and describe the issues, hurdles, and strategies for reanalyses carried out separately or simultaneously across climate system components. 

2. How should the paper be organized? See Sketch

3. Who would like to contribute?

Gilbert P.  Compo, James Carton, Prashant D. Sardeshmukh, Arun Kumar, Xiquan Dong, Sarah Lu, Daryl Kleist, Jack Woollen, Heather Archambault, Lisan Yu, Steve Penny, Suranjana Saha, Huug van den Dool, John McCormack, Michael Ek, Jesse Meng, Malaquias Peña, Michael Bosilovich, Yan Xue, Xingren Wu

Lead author: Gil Compo

inviting some additional NASA folks: Ron Gelaro, Arlindo daSilva, Ricardo Todling, Steven Pawson who attended the Technical workshop

4. IMPORTANT for 27 April Discussion: As a coauthor, for which section(s)/ideas will you be responsible?

volunteer on the Outline document or in comments below.

Mike Ek, Jesse Meng: Land data assimilation

Xiquan Dong: Side bar on atmospheric reanalyses compared with observations

Suru: Side bar on developing NOAA Coupled Climate reanalyses.

Lisan: sidebar or main text section on ocean surface energy and freshwater budgets.

Xingren: Sea ice reanalysis

5. BAMS article proposal

Gil Compo will submitted 26 April 2016. Expect response in 2 to 3 weeks. 

Update 27 June: proposal accepted.

 

Link to current draft of proposal.

6. By when should the paper be submitted? August 2016

7. What other key milestones should be set?

Steering committee of Sardeshmukh, Compo, Kumar, Carton, Saha, Woollen will get together in about a month to discuss significantly revised structure from current Outline.





Draft of Sketchy Outline link

 

Hi Gil,
I will contribute to write the section related to the evaluation of reanalyzed clouds, radiation and precipitation using both surface and satellite observations over different climate regimes based on our following papers and ongoing research:
1) Dolinar E., X. Dong, B. Xi, J. Jiang and N. Loeb, 2016: Calculating Clear-sky Radiative Fluxes with Inputs from Observed and MERRA-2 Atmospheric Profiles. Nearly submitted to JGR (reviewed by coauthors).
2) Huang Y, X, Dong, B. Xi, E.K. Dolinar, and R.E. Stanfield, 2015: Quantifying the uncertainties of reanalyzed Arctic cloud and radiation properties using satellite-surface observations: Submitted to Clim. Dynamics.
3) Cui, W., X. Dong, B. Xi, and R. Stenz, 2015: Comparison of GPCP 1DD precipitation product with NEXRAD Q2 precipitation estimates over the CONUS. J. Hydrometeology (accepted)

Thanks,
Xiquan Dong

Hi Gil,
I will contribute to write the section related to the evaluation of reanalyzed clouds, radiation and precipitation using both surface and satellite observations over different climate regimes based on our following papers and ongoing research:

1) Dong, X., B. Zib, B. Xi, R. Stanfield, X. Zhang, B. Lin, and C.N. Long, 2014: Critical Mechanisms for the Formation of Extreme Arctic Sea-Ice Extent in the Summers of 2007 and 1996. Climate Dyn. 43, 53-70. DOI: 10.1007/s00382-013-1920-8.
2) Dolinar, E., X. Dong, and B. Xi, 2015: Evaluation and intercomparison of clouds, precipitation and radiation budgets in recent reanalyses using satellite-surface data . Clim Dyn. DOI :10.1007/s00382-015-693-z
3) Dolinar E., X. Dong, B. Xi, J. Jiang and N. Loeb, 2016: Calculating Clear-sky Radiative Fluxes with Inputs from Observed and MERRA-2 Atmospheric Profiles. Nearly submitted to JGR (reviewed by coauthors).
4) Huang Y, X, Dong, B. Xi, E.K. Dolinar, and R.E. Stanfield, 2015: Quantifying the uncertainties of reanalyzed Arctic cloud and radiation properties using satellite-surface observations: Submitted to Clim. Dynamics.
5) Cui, W., X. Dong, B. Xi, and R. Stenz, 2015: Comparison of GPCP 1DD precipitation product with NEXRAD Q2 precipitation estimates over the CONUS. J. Hydrometeology (accepted)

Thanks,
Xiquan Dong

To push things forward I propose the following draft 250wd abstract and cover letter. We need to submit these first to BAMS before writing the article. The abstract describes my view of the reason for, and subject of the article. Jim

Cover Letter

Dear :

We would like to write an article for BAMS with the title: ‘Climate Reanalysis: Present and Future’. It has been twenty years since the publication of Kalnay et al (1996). That article introduced the meteorology community to reanalysis and set off a revolution that is still ongoing. Several years ago NOAA set up a group called the Reanalysis Task Force to provide a forum to track developments in reanalysis and to identify common ground and synergies. Last spring this group this article met to discuss the state of the art spanning multiple components of the earth system (atmosphere, ocean, land, sea ice). This article will be written based on material presented at that meeting and will have the goal of informing the general BAMS readership on the current state of the art and the future of climate reanalysis. The urgency and pressing scientific questions are both connected to the immense impact of reanalyses and their rapid evolution. These factors also explain why the readers will find such an article timely and interesting.

The expected length is 8000-8500 words with 5-7 figures (all straightforward). We expect to have several sections divided among systems: atmosphere, ocean, and land surface, and a concluding section discussing the challenges of climate reanalysis. We expect to include a few side bars giving examples of applications. We can include the meeting report in the electronic supplement.

Yours,

Abstract
Twenty years ago the publication of Kalnay et al (1996) in this journal introduced the meteorology community to the NCEP/NCAR atmospheric reanalysis. Its publication and the effort to keep it up to date and openly available began a revolution in meteorological research that has spread to many related fields. Reanalyses are gridded reconstructions of the historical environmental record that are reasonably consistent with both historical observations and a predictive numerical model. From this initial effort improvements in computer technology, predictive models, better understanding of historical observations, as well as improvements in data assimilation algorithms are driving a continual cycle of development, and have spawned multiple reanalysis efforts both within the United States and abroad, all of which represent large investments of both people and money. The NOAA Climate Reanalysis Task Force was created to provide a forum for the purpose of providing a forum to organize multiple reanalysis efforts and share developments. This article describes the current suite of reanalyses beginning with the atmospheric reanalyses, but extending to the ocean and land surface. Examination of the initial reanalyses highlighted problems in the historical observational record as well as inconsistencies between the observations and the numerical models. We review the challenges inherent in the observational record and discuss the impact of the changing measurement systems on the resulting reanalyses. The rapid development of reanalyses of the ocean/sea ice system, and land surface is discussed. We conclude with a discussion of the future of reanalysis, including the shift towards a combined reanalysis of the climate system.

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