Considine_COLA_Jan11.ppt

Jim Kinter - COLA Overview
Overview
Briefing for David Considine
6 January 2011

Vision and Mission
MISSION
Explore, Establish and Quantify
the Predictability and Prediction
of Intra-Seasonal to Decadal Variability
in a Changing Climate
VISION
Global Society Benefits
from Basic and Applied Research and Education
on Climate Variability and Predictability
and the Free Access to Data and Research Tools

– Critical mass of climate scientists working as a team, with stable, multi-
agency funding, working on focused scientific problem
– Evaluation of and experimentation with Nation’s climate models
– Scientific leadership in I-S-I climate variability community and in
national and international research programs and projects
– Linkage to PhD program in Climate Dynamics at GMU
– High-capacity in-house computing facility
– Highly valued, widely used information technology (GrADS and GDS)
for efficient analysis, exchange, display, management & use of climate
data
Unique Capabilities

Achievements
– Established a scientific basis for quantitative dynamical seasonal-to-
interannual prediction grounded in classical predictability theory and
using state-of-the-art models
– Established feasibility of reanalysis of past observations to determine
the state of the climate system (Bengtsson and Shukla, 1988; Kinter and
Shukla, 1989; Paolino et al. 1994)
– Quantified capability to predict all four seasons in Dynamical Seasonal
Prediction project
– Advanced multi-model ensemble for both predictability and prediction,
e.g., adaptation of CCSM3 for ENSO prediction
– Demonstrated that ocean-atmosphere interactions and land-atmosphere
interactions, with high-frequency noise and low-frequency climate
change, play important roles to enhance climate predictability
– Developed framework for predictability and prediction issues based on
cutting-edge probability theory
– Developed innovative modeling, data analysis and information theoretic
strategies for understanding predictability and for prediction
– Showed that better models (improved mean) can lead to better
predictions

“Omnibus” Funding
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
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
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.
* Thanks to our peers and the agencies
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
REVIEWS:
Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent/Very Good Very Good Good

“Omnibus” Funding
COLA is viewed as a major interagency National center of excellence:
2006

Omnibus Grant I 1994 – 1998
Five-Year Science Review 1993 – 1996
SAC & Agencies Review 6-7 Nov 1996
Agencies’ Guidance to Submit Proposal May 1997
SAC Review of Proposal 26-27 Mar 1998
Omnibus Proposal Submitted May
1998
Omnibus Grant II 1999-2003
SAC Meeting 14-15 Nov 2000
Five-Year Science Review 1997-2001
SAC & Agencies Review 21-22 Feb 2002
Agencies’ Guidance to Submit Proposal April 2002
SAC Review of Proposal 6-7 Feb 2003
Omnibus Proposal Submitted April
2003
Omnibus Grant III 2004-2008
SAC Meeting 26-27 Sep 2005
SAC & Agencies Review 26-28 Feb 2007
Agencies’ Guidance to Submit Proposal July 2007
SAC Review of Proposal Dec 2007
Omnibus Proposal Submitted Mar
2008
Funding of Award Delayed Jan – Sep 2009
Omnibus Grant IV 2009-2014
SAC Meeting 12-13 Apr 2010
SAC Meeting 26-27 Sep 2011
SAC & Agencies Review Spring 2012
Agencies’ Guidance to Submit Proposal Summer 2012
History of COLA Omnibus Grant

COLA Scientific Advisory Committee
The SAC reviews and advises on scientific activities at COLA.
Current members selected in consultation with the Federal agencies:
J. Hurrell NCAR (2010 – ; chair 2011 - )
D. Lettenmaier University of Washington (2011 – )
T. Palmer ECMWF (2010 – )
S. Schubert NASA Goddard (2002 – )
S. Sorooshian UC Irvine (2005 – )
L. Uccellini NOAA NCEP (2007 – )
B. Wang University of Hawaii (2005 – )
Other distinguished colleagues who have served on the COLA SAC:
D. Anderson ECMWF (2005–2009)
L. Bengtsson Max-Planck-Institute (1998-2001)
G. Branstator NCAR (1999–2010)
D. Burridge ECMWF (1994–1999;2001 – 2005)
A. Busalacchi NASA Goddard (1994-1997)
R. Dickinson Georgia Tech (1998–2010; chair 2004–2010)
D. Hartmann University of Washington (1998–2005; chair 1999–2003)
A. Leetmaa GFDL (2000 – 2005 )
R. Mechoso UCLA (1994-1998)
K. Miyakoda IMGA (Italy) (1994-1997)
G. North Texas A&M University (1999 – 2005)
Julia Paegle University of Utah (1994-1997)
J. Slingo University of Reading (2005–2009)
K. Trenberth NCAR (1994-99; chair 1998-99)
J. M. Wallace University of Washington (1994-99; chair 1994-97)

Omnibus-Funded Staff (Team History)
Scientist Highest Degree Joined COLA §
Scientific Staff
J. Shukla * Sc.D. MIT (1976); Ph.D. BHU (1971) 1983
Pres., IGES (1993-present); Dir. COLA (1993-2004)
J. L. Kinter III * Ph.D. Princeton (1984) 1984
Exec. Dir. COLA (1993-2004); Dir. COLA (2005-present)
E. Altshuler M.S. Maryland (1996) 1998
B. Cash Ph.D. Penn State (2000) 2002
T. DelSole * Ph.D. Harvard (1993) 1997
P. A. Dirmeyer Ph.D. Maryland (1992) 1993
B. E. Doty * B.S. N. Illinois (1978) 1984
M. J. Fennessy M.S. SUNY-Albany (1980) 1984
Z. Guo Ph.D. Ohio State (2002) 2002
B. Huang * Ph.D. Maryland (1992) 1993
E. Jin * Ph.D. Seoul (2005) 2006
B. Klinger * Ph.D. MIT-WHOI (1992) 2000
V. Krishnamurthy * Ph.D. M.I.T. (1985) 1985
J. Lu * Ph.D. Dalhousie (2003) 2008
L. Marx M.S. MIT (1977) 1983
D. A. Paolino M.S. Illinois (1980) 1983
E. K. Schneider * Ph.D. Harvard (1976) 1984
C. Stan Ph.D. Colorado State (2004) 2005
D. M. Straus * Ph.D. Cornell (1977) 1984
Information Systems Staff
J. Adams M.S. Washington (1993) 2000
C. Steinmetz, Dir. Ph.D. Purdue (1991) 1998
T. Wakefield B.S. Maryland (2004) 2000
* also affiliated with George Mason University
§ 1983-1993: University of Maryland; 1993-present: IGES
Your most precious possessions
are the people you have working
there, and what they carry around
in their heads, and their ability to
work together.
- Robert Reich

Recent Awards to COLA Scientists
Bohua Huang 2007 AMS Editor’s Award
J. Shukla 2008 Fellow of the AGU
Paul Dirmeyer 2009 Distinguished Alumnus UMd.
AOS Program
J. Kinter 2010 Fellow of the AMS

World Climate Modeling Summit (Shukla, chair; Kinter, member)
Very successful meeting in May 2008 at ECMWF
NRC BASC Panel on Advancing Climate Modeling (Bretherton, chair;
Kinter, member)
Advise USG on climate modeling strategy
NSF Geosciences Advisory Committee (Kinter, member)
Developed a new vision document for the NSF Geosciences 2010-2015
NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure (Kinter, member)
TeraGrid SAB (Kinter, chair)
Provided high-end computing guidance to NSF
NOAA NCEP Review Panel (Kinter, co-chair)
NOAA Climate Test Bed SAB (Busalacchi, chair; Kinter, member)
Provide independent advice on high-priority scientific challenges
Editors: Adv. Atmospheric Science (Huang)
Climate Dynamics (Schneider)
J. Climate (DelSole)
COLA Leadership - Examples

Publications

• GrADS has O(104) users worldwide with O(104) of copies of the S/W
downloaded
• GrADS figures are frequently found in weather and climate journals, e.g. up
to a third of J. Climate graphics
• GrADS is used to generate figures on dozens of NOAA, NASA, university
and non-US weather and climate data web pages
(www.iges.org/grads/gotw.html)
• GDS serves thousands of unique users (millions of hits) monthly from
NOAA/NOMADS, NASA/LIS, CEOP etc.
• COLA GDS (including NCAR dataportal) 2003-2007:
– > 100 million hits (80 million data requests)
– > 4.5 TB sent
– Averaging > 1,200 unique IPs/month
GrADS and GDS

COLA Science - Themes
• Intraseasonal, Seasonal and Interannual (I-S-
I) Predictability and Prediction
• Land-Climate Interactions
• Decadal Climate Prediction
• High Spatial Resolution

I-S-I Predictability and Prediction -
Multi-Model Approach: Honest Broker
(via institutional collaborations)
• Community Climate System Model (CCSM; NSF)
– Leading effort to correct tropical biases
– Adaptation as seasonal predictability research tool
• Climate Forecast System (CFS; NOAA - Climate Test Bed)
– Participation in external and internal CTB planning
– Predictability research with NCEP CFS
– Work toward multi-model prediction capability
• Modeling, Analysis and Prediction (MAP) (GEOS; NASA)
– New atmospheric reanalysis (MERRA) uses new ESMF-based model (GEOS-5)
– Multi-model ensemble
– Utilizing NASA satellite data for predictability and prediction research focused on
characterizing role of noise and initialization

CCSM Re-Forecasts with Land ICs
Requires global land
surface observations,
reanalyses (MERRA)

POP4
NCAR
CAM4
Multi-Model Ensemble
NCEP
GFS2
GSFC
GEOS5
MOM4
GFDL
AM2
MOM4 MOM4
CCSM4
CESM1
CFSv2 CM2.x GEOS_CM

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

Land-Climate Interactions
• GLACE(-1): Spatial and temporal (mean annual cycle) variability of
regions of land-atmosphere feedbacks
• GLACE-2: The impact of soil moisture initial conditions on seasonal
predictions of surface air temperature and precipitation was found to
peak in the second 15 days.
• “The Maya Express”, an atmospheric river that supplies moisture to
flooding events in the U.S. Midwest, links tropical and subtropical
moisture from the Caribbean Sea to many extreme rainfall events
during spring and summer.
• The CLM3.5 and Noah land models were successfully coupled to the
COLA AGCM. Together with SSiB, there are now three land models
coupled to one AGCM, which makes a great tool for future innovative
experiments on land-atmosphere interaction.

Global Land-Atmosphere
Coupling Experiment
Koster, R. D., P. A. Dirmeyer, Z. Guo, G. Bonan, E. Chan, P. Cox, H. Davies, T.
Gordon, S. Kanae, E. Kowalczyk, D. Lawrence, P. Liu, S. Lu, S. Malyshev, B.
McAvaney, K. Mitchell, T. Oki, K. Oleson, A. Pitman, Y. Sud, C. Taylor, D.
Verseghy, R. Vasic, Y. Xue, and T. Yamada, 2004: Regions of strong coupling
between soil moisture and precipitation. Science, 305, 1138-1140.
•The GLACE project
showed that coupling
between land and
atmosphere is strongest
in transitional zones
between humid and arid
regions.
•These areas are ideal
for remote sensing of
soil moisture (passive
microwave).

GLACE-2: Experiment Overview
Perform ensembles
of retrospective
seasonal forecasts
realistic initial land surface
states
Prescribed, observed SST
realistic initial atmospheric
states
Evaluate
forecasts
against
observations
Series 1:
Perform ensembles
of retrospective
seasonal forecasts
realistic initial land
surface states
Prescribed, observed SST
realistic initial
atmospheric states
Evaluate
forecasts
against
observations
Series 2:
Courtesy of Paul Dirmeyer, Zhichang Guo

Land Impacts on Air Temperature Forecast Skill
Lead time (days)
GLACE-2 Multi-Model Analysis
• 10 GCMs, 10-
member
ensembles, 10
start dates
(AMJJA) across
10 years.
• Realistic soil
moisture
initialization
improves
forecasts.
r2 correlations
Courtesy of Paul Dirmeyer, Zhichang Guo

GLACE-2
Predictability
Rebound
• Box over US Great
Plains.
• Soil moisture memory is
high during spring and
summer.
• In early spring soil
moisture does not
control ET.
• Late spring and
summer, all pieces are
in place.
• The impact of soil
moisture on
temperature and precip
maximizes,

Maya
Express
Where does the water
come from for extreme
precip events in the
Great Plains?
May-July 1979-2003 climatology
(left) of precip, soil moisture,
and evaporative source for box
– and – anomalies of same for
10% highest precip in those
months.
climatology top 10% precip
May-July, 1979-2003
PREC
SLM
EVAP
source

Requirements for
Decadal Prediction
Climate components
predictable at
decadal leads
Climate information,
??? societally-relevant
a decade in advance
Lorenz: There are three questions about predictability:
• What do we want to predict?
• What can we predict?
• Is there anything in common between the two?
It may happen that what we want to predict is
hardest to predict (e.g. regional water cycle)!

Recent Papers
“A Significant Component of Unforced Multidecadal
Variability in Twentieth Century Global Warming”
Timothy DelSole, Michael K. Tippett, Jagadish Shukla
(To Appear: J. Climate)
“The Impact of North Atlantic-Arctic Multidecadal Variability
on Northern Hemisphere Surface Air Temperature”
Vladimir A. Semenov, Mojib Latif, Dietmar Dommenget, Noel S. Keenlyside,
Alexander Strehz, Thomas Martin, Wonsun Park
(To Appear: J. Climate)
“On the Trend of the Global Mean Surface Temperature”
Norden E. Huang, Zhaohua Wu, John M. Wallace, Xianyao Chen, Brian Smoliak,
Compton J. Tucker
(In Review)

Courtesy of Tim DelSole

Amplitude of Forced and Unforced Patterns
Courtesy of Tim DelSole

Planned Experiments
• AR5 Decadal Predictions (CLIVAR-coordinated
project)
• Coordination with NCEP (EMC and CPC)
• 10-year and 30-year re-forecasts
• 1 November 1960, 1965, …, 2005, 2010
– NCEP will use CFS-R initial conditions
– COLA will use ECMWF initial conditions
• Ensembles of 4
• CFSv2
• Will be submitted to CMIP-5 archive
– Coordination with GEOS5 CMIP-5 runs, among many others

High Spatial
Resolution?

Is required for:
 Accuracy
 Representation of features
 Representation of processes
 Scale interaction
Drives computational demand
High Spatial
Resolution!

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 people in 6 groups on 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 supercomputer at 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)

• COLA - Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, USA (NSF-funded)
• ECMWF - European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts, UK
• JAMSTEC - Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Research
Institute for Global Change, Japan
• University of Tokyo, Japan
• NICS - National Institute for Computational Sciences, USA (NSF-funded)
• Cray Inc.
Collaborating Groups
Codes
• NICAM: Nonhydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model
• IFS: ECMWF Integrated Forecast System
Supercomputers
• Athena: Cray XT4 - 4512 quad-core Opteron nodes (18048)
• #30 on Top500 list (November 2009) – dedicated Oct’09 – Mar’10
• Kraken: Cray XT5 - 8256 dual hex-core Opteron nodes (99072)
• #3 on Top500 list (November 2009) – allocation of 5M SUs

Athena Experiments

Athena Workshop
Marx Forbes Kodama Cash Hodges Shaffrey Jung Kinter Fuentes
Manganello Tomita Bechtold Shukla Jin Wedi Towers Molteni Palmer
Miller
ECMWF, reading, UK
7-8 June 2010
36

Blocking Frequencies: DJFM 1960-2007
-180 -120 -60 0 60 120 180
Longitude
0
10
20
30
40
Blocking
Frequency
(%)
Reanalysis
T159
T511
T1279
Tibaldi-Molteni Index

Regional Climate Change – Beyond Today’s
Models’ Ability?
38

Annual Mean Precipitation Change
Europe: 21st C minus 20th C
T159 (128-km) T1279 (16-km)
“Time-slice” runs of the ECMWF IFS global atmospheric model with observed SST for the 20th
century and CMIP3 projections of SST for the 21st century at two different model resolutions
The continental-scale pattern of precipitation change associated with global warming is the same,
but the regional details are quite different, particularly in southern Europe.

North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones Track Density
IFS, March-November, 1990-2008
OBS
T1279
T511
T159
T204
7
40

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.
Very high resolution -
both obs and models -
may be needed for diurnal
cycle, sub-seasonal
variability and extreme
events

Broader Impacts: Education,
Outreach and Training
• GMU Ph.D. Program in 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
• GrADS and GDS
• COLA Technical Reports
• Web Pages
• Panels and Working Groups

Education
George Mason University (GMU) established (2003) a new
Ph.D. Program in Climate Dynamics in the School of
Computational Sciences (SCS). Became Climate Dynamics
Department in College of Sciences in 2006. Now part of
Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences Department.
• Current Graduate Students
• K. Arsenault (Shukla/Dirmeyer/Houser)
• A. Badger (Jin)
• G. Bucher (DelSole)
• H. Chen (Schneider)
• I. Colfescu (Schneider)
• X. Feng (Lu)
• A. Garuba (Klinger)
• A. Hazra (Klinger)
• Y. Jang (Straus)
• L. Krishnamurthy (Krishnamurthy)
• E. Lajoie (DelSole)
• J. Li (Huang)
• J. Nattala (Kinter)
• E. Palipane (Lu)
• A. Srivastava (Shukla)
• E. Stofferahn (Boybehi)
• E. Swenson (Straus)
• L. Xu (Shukla)
• GMU Climate Dynamics Faculty
• Faculty (0.5 FTE): Shukla (Director, CLIM), DelSole, Huang,
Jin, Klinger, Lu, Schneider, Schopf, Straus (chair,
AOES)
• Lecturers: Dirmeyer, Kinter, Koster (GSFC), Krishnamurthy,
Sud (GSFC)

2002-2010 GMU-CD Ph.D.s
Deepthi Role of the Indian and Pacific Oceans in Indian Summer Monsoon Variability
Achuthavarier (post-doctoral associate, COLA)
Whit Anderson Oceanic Sill - Overflow Systems: Investigation and Simulation with the Poseidon OGCM
(post-doctoral associate, NOAA GFDL)
Susan Bates The Role of the Annual Cycle in the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Variability in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean
(research scientist, NCAR)
Robert Burgman ENSO Decadal Variability in a Tropically-Forced Hybrid Coupled Model
(post-doctoral associate University of Miami)
Carlos Cruz Global Ocean Circulation Variability Induced by Southern Ocean Winds
(research scientist, NASA Goddard)
Meizhu Fan Low Frequency North Atlantic SST Variability: Weather Noise Forcing and Coupled Response
(research scientist: NOAA NESDIS)
Xia Feng New Methods For Estimating Seasonal Potential Climate Predictability
(post-doctoral associate, GMU)
Laura Feudale Extreme Events in Europe & N. America During 1950-2003: An Observational & Modeling Study
(post-doctoral associate, International Centre for Theoretical Physics)
Daeho Jin The Impact of ENSO on the Extratropics
(post-doctoral associate, University of Maryland)
Julia Manganello The Influence of SST Anomalies on Low-Frequency Variability of the North Atlantic Oscillation
(research scientist, COLA)
Bala Narapusetty Impact Of Tropical Instability Waves In The Eastern Equatorial Pacific
(post-doctoral associate, COLA)
Xiaohua Pan Impact of Mean Climate on ENSO Simulation and Prediction
(post-doctoral associate, COLA)
Kathy Pegion Potential Predictability of Tropical Intraseasonal Variability in the NCEP CFS
(research scientist, CIRES, University of Colorado)
Mary Ellen Verona Observational Analysis and Numerical Simulation of 1997-1998 El Niño
(deceased)
Yuri Vikhliaev Decadal Extra-Tropical Pacific Variability
(post-doctoral associate, NASA Goddard)
Tugrul Yilmaaz Improving Land Data Assimilation Performance With A Water Budget Constraint
(post-doctoral associate, GMU)

CLIM 101: Global
Warming - Weather,
Climate and Society
The signs of global climate change can be seen all over the Earth. Some regions
are already experiencing dramatic changes and more changes are expected in the
future. The costs to society and ecosystems may be huge. Information about
climate change is immensely valuable, and a public educated about the scientific
basis for these changes is essential.
This course provides a survey of the scientific and societal issues associated with
weather and climate variability and change. It will enable students to critically
examine arguments being discussed by policy makers, corporations, and the public
at large. The current debate on climate change will be discussed from a scientific
point of view, with a focus on those aspects that have the largest potential impact on
global society.
CLIM 101 is open to all undergraduate students
and fulfills the General Education Natural Science
(non-laboratory) requirement.
Instructors:
Emilia , Jim Kinter and Jagadish Shukla,

Considine_COLA_Jan11.ppt

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