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| Speaker/Affiliation | Title | Abstract | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matthew Long
Matthew Long <mclong@ucar.edu> | MARBL talk: Ocean biogeochemistry in the Earth system modeling framework: applications and approach | Marine biogeochemical cycles play a fundamental role regulating climate, most directly through impacts on atmospheric carbon dioxide. This has motivated the development of ocean biogeochemistry modules as components of Earth system models, primarily for the purpose of simulating changes in ocean sinks for carbon dioxide under future emissions scenarios. These models, however, can be applied to a range of other interesting problems related to marine ecology and biogeochemistry. In this talk, I provide a brief overview of some research questions in ocean biogeochemistry and ecology that I find interesting. I then describe our efforts to develop the Marine Biogeochemistry Library (MARBL), which is a modular implementation of ocean biogeochemistry that aims to be flexible and capable of operating within different physical frameworks---thereby enabling research across a broad array of questions. |
| 2 | Michal A. Kopera (UCSC), Wieslaw Maslowski (NPS), Francis X. Giraldo (NPS)
Michal A. Kopera <makopera@ucsc.edu> | A new ice sheet / ocean interaction model for Greenland Fjords using discontinuous Galerkin method | One of the key outstanding challenges in modeling of climate change and sea-level rise is the ice-sheet/ocean interaction in narrow, elongated and often geometrically complicated fjords around Greenland. The goal of the Fjord-DG (FDG) project is to build a separate, highresolution module for use in Earth System Models (ESMs) to realistically represent the fjord bathymetry and coastlines and the fine-scale processes occurring within the fjord and at the ice shelf interface, using discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods. FDG is currently at the first stage of development. We used NUMA (Non-hydrostatic Unified model of the Atmosphere) framework to develop the incompressible Navier-Stokes equation (INSE) solver, which will be used as a dynamical core in the fjord ocean model. We will present some preliminary results of idealized INSE test cases, and discuss further avenues of the project progress. The key features of the FDG module will be high-order accuracy, geometrical flexibility and nonconforming adaptive mesh refinement to resolve the processes occurring near the ice-sheet/ ocean interface without introducing prohibiting computational cost. The non-hydrostatic model will account for the stationary ice-shelf with sub-shelf ocean interaction, basal melting and subglacial meltwater influx, with boundary conditions at the surface to account for floating sea ice. The boundary conditions will be provided to the model via CPL7 coupler to emulate the integration with ESM. FDG will be tested initially on Sermilik Fjord using real bathymetry, boundary and initial conditions, and evaluated against observations and other model results for this fjord. The overarching goal of the project is to be able to resolve the ice-sheet/ocean interactions around the entire Greenland’s coast and two-way couple with climate models like ACME. |
| 3 | Michael Prather, Juno Hso, Alex Viedenbaum, Alex Nicolau; UC Irvine | Solar-J - RRTMG comparisons An examination of systematic biases in ACME solar heating rates - comparison with multi-stream Solar-J | As part of the development of a combined photolysis-heating module for DOE's ACME, we have taken the better-resolved photolysis code (Cloud-J, < 778 nm) and merged it with the RRTMG bins longward of 778 nm. For clear-sky calculations, the results are similar as expected, but for cirrus and stratus decks the 2-stream models in RRTMG produce significant biases that vary as a function of solar zenith angle and cloud optical depth when compared with the 8-stream Solar-J model. This is expected, but the size is significant, and may affect the mean meteorology. We present comparisons of the different options for solar heating codes used in CESM and ACME with those from the newly developed Solar-J. |
| 4 | Xianglei Huang (the University of Michigan) | Incorporate realistic spectral emissivity of surfaces into the CESM and the influence on simulated radiation budget, mean climate, and climate changes. | The actual surface emissivity is spectrally dependent, for both oceans and lands. Like many state-of-the-art GCMs, the atmospheric radiation scheme in the CESM still assumes the surface being blackbody. A few recent studies showed that the surface spectral emissivity could have impact on the simulated radiation budget and climate, which motivated this study. First, we developed a global surface spectral emissivity dataset suitable for the GCM and NWP models. The dataset is based on the first-principle calculation for the far-IR. It is anchored on MODIS surface emissivity retrievals for the mid-IR and validated against IASI retrieved surface spectral emissivity. Using LBLRTM, we also carry out a benchmark study to understand the errors in the RRTMG_LW scheme when surface spectral emissivity is included.
We implement this dataset into the CESM and modify code to ensure consistency between land module and atmosphere module of the CESM. Comparing to the standard CESM, the slab-ocean run shows a change of 1.9 Wm-2 for the global-mean TOA net radiative flux (downward positive). The atmospheric column net radiativing cooling changes by -0.6 Wm-2. The changes have distinct spatial patterns. The results from 20-year fully coupled CESM run show similar but generally smaller changes than the slab-ocean run. The impact on simulated precipitation and surface temperature will be also discussed. |
| 5 | Michael S. Pritchard, Hossein Parishani, Mathew C. Wyant, Marat Khairoutdinov, Balwinder Singh, Christopher S. Bretherton Mike Pritchard [mailto:mspritch@uci.edu] | Towards low cloud-permitting cloud superparameterization. | Results are shown from a prototype “ultra-parameterized” version of the Community Atmosphere Model. In this approach, O(10k) embedded cloud resolving models (CRMs) are used within a 2-degree global climate model (i.e. a Multiscale Modeling Framework, or MMF) but with radically refined interior resolution relative to standard superparameterization — with CRM horizontal resolution approaching 250 m and vertical resolution approaching 20 m in the marine boundary layer inversion zone. Philosophically, the goal is to explicitly capture the outer scales of turbulence involved in marine boundary layer (MBL) dynamics towards a more robust treatment of global low cloud feedback in climate models. To make the approach computationally feasible, an algorithm for accelerating the mean state evolution of CRMs is implemented, as well as software engineering for enhanced parallel scalability and GPU co-processing. Pilot hindcast tests reveal a more satisfying representation of MBL vertical decoupling dynamics and surface fluxes but also an unintended consequences of chronically low liquid water concentration linked to overentrainment symptoms, inconsistent with offline LES benchmark studies. Fixing an error in how surface fluxes are transmitted to CRMs in the MMF helps recover some missing coastal cloud fraction and using CRM grids with an extreme aspect ratio (~200) helps recover much of the missing LWP in association with modified turbulent kinetic energy statistics. Overall this highlights emerging issues and potential tuning strategies at a previously unencountered frontier within the grey zone of quasi-resolved turbulence for multi-scale climate modeling. |
| 6 | Ethan Butler [mailto:eebutler@umn.edu] | Estimating Global Maps of Trait Distributions | Plant traits have been measured at diverse sites, but there are still wide areas with minimal or non-existent measurements. This spatial limitation necessitates some method of interpolation to construct continuous trait surfaces for use in independent modeling or as input to global land surface models. Here we present two distinct methodologies to leverage a sub-set of the global database of plant traits, TRY, to create continuous maps of trait distributions for leaf nitrogen, specific leaf area, and mass based maximum photosynthesis rate. First, a categorical method, leveraging classification of the species observed in TRY and satellite estimates of their plant functional type abundances - analogous to how traits are currently assigned to PFTs in land surface models. Second, a spatial statistical method which additionally estimates how the distribution of a trait changes in accord with both climate and soil covariates. These methods produce global maps of full trait distributions at a resolution commensurate with many other observational datasets and Earth System Models and may be used as input or cross validation for such models. |
| 7 | François Primea and Keith Moore, UCI | Developing fast implicit spin-‐up capabilities for CESM to study the dynamics o the ocean’s nitrogen and carbon cycles | We are investigating the impacts of non-‐Redfield plankton stoichiometry on the marine carbon cycle using CESM. We tested two methods to generate non-‐Redfield patterns (th Redfield N/P ratio of 16/1 is used i th standard CESM):
We are evaluating the different formulations by comparing the simulations to field observations o [PO3 an N = [NO3]-‐16[PO4]. The model evaluation is still ongoing, but is showing promising results, which we will present along with comparisons to recent inverse model results. We will also present an update on the development of the fast implicit biogeochemical tracer solver and our plan for using the solver to evaluate the impacts of non-‐Redfield stoichiometry on the oxygen-‐, phosphorous-‐, nitrogen-‐, and carbon-‐cycle dynamics of the ocean. |
| 8 | Chaopeng Shen, William J. Riley and John M. Melack Civil and Environmental Engineering, Pennsylvania State University | Scale-aware hydrologic and biogeochemical modeling for the Amazon and the world: model enhancement, multi-scale strategies and dataset generation | Modeling hydrology and biogeochemistry faces several prominent challenges including insufficient subsurface flow representation, hydrologic and coupled biogeochemical scaling issue and lack of high quality verification datasets. Our project addresses these issues with a rich set of activities which also target generic improvements in hydrologic modeling in future Earth System modeling, especially in data-poor regions. We have made progress in (a) model improvement: we implemented a Global Process-based Adaptive Watershed Simulator with Community Land Model, (PAWS+CLM4.5) package with Fortran-native reflection capabilities to enable detailed, process-based hydrologic modeling in the world and convenient modeling coupling; (b) multi-scale methods: we investigated several scaling methods including moment matching, reduced-order modeling and soil-moisture-fractal-based scaling, and are testing a perturbed prototype scaling method which seems promising; (c) channel-land interactions: we created data extraction algorithm for physically-based channel modeling, and examined the influence of channel processes on simulated water and carbon fluxes and states; (d) Amazon water budgets: we modeled hydrology in several basins in the Amazon, which highlighted the importance of groundwater flow in streamflow and evapotranspiration (ET) seasonality; and (e) production of “hydrologic-model-free” verification data using satellite products, including a GRACE-assisted-Budyko-curve global ET product and a GRACE-based streamflow change estimate (we focus on GRACE as it is not sensitive to the heavy canopy in the Amazon, unlike MODIS and SMAP). These activities have resulted in a list of publications and will serve to broaden the capabilities of the Earth System models. |