The Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research - Seminars

Seminars - Melbourne

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Go to the list of CAWCR seminars for 2011

CAWCR SEMINARS 2012

Date	Time	Title	Speaker	Affiliation
Wednesday 16th May	10:00AM	Economic Impacts of Tropical Cyclones on Western Australia	John McBride	CAWCR
Monday 14th May	10:00AM	Why a +2°C world won't solve Africa's climate change problems	Francois A. Engelbrecht	CSIR Natural Resources and the Environment, South Africa
Friday 11th May	02:00PM	The “Pipeline” Workflow Tool for Climate Model Data Analysis	Tim Erwin	CMAR
Wednesday 2nd May	10:00AM	Long-wave Explicit and Short-wave Implicit (LESI) in the context of nesting	Brian Sanderson	Acadia University, Nova Scotia
Monday 30th April	10:00AM	Post-processing through Linear regression. What can we learn about model errors?	Stéphane Vannitsem	Institut Royal Météorologique de Belgique
Thursday 5th April	11:00AM	The effect of the South Pacific Convergence Zone on the termination of El Niño events and the meridional asymmetry of ENSO	Shayne McGregor	UNSW
Wednesday 4th April	10:00AM	Weather radars for climate science	Scott Collis	ARM Climate Research Facility, Argonne National Laboratory , USA
Wednesday 28th March	10:00AM	Recent studies with an aerosol process model: GLOMAP, UKCA and the stratosphere	Kathryn Emmerson	WEP Aspendale
Monday 26th March	10:00AM	A Review of NWP and Climate Research and Operations at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)	Michael J. Uddstrom	NIWA
Wednesday 21st March	10:00AM	Intel’s HPC Strategy in Parallelism on the Path to Exascale	Joe Curley	Technical Computing Marketing, Hillsboro, Oregon
Wednesday 14th March	10:00AM	Supporting public health strategies for climate-sensitive infectious diseases: an overview of experiences of multi-disciplinary partnerships at the interface between the public health, environmental and research communities	Emily Firth	Health and Climate Foundation
Friday 9th March	3:00pm	Excitation of moist convection over the Pacific warm pool: An alternative view	Rit Carbone	NCAR
Wednesday 7th March	10:00AM	The impact of soil moisture and convectively-generated waves on the initiation of a West African mesoscale convective system	Cathryn Birch	University of Leeds
Wednesday 29th February	10:00am	Impacts of the Madden-Julian Oscillation in the Indian Ocean and on the Western Australian coast.	Andrew Marshall	CAWCR
Wednesday 22nd February	10:00am	Diurnal Cycles and the Stable Atmospheric Boundary Layer	Vaughan Barras	CAWCR
Friday 17th February	2:00pm	A New Structure of Error Covariance Matrices and Their Adaptive Estimation in EnKF Assimilation	Xiaogu Zheng	College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University
Wednesday 15th February	2:00pm	UM status, plans & collaboration update. Developments in technical infrastructure for the UM.	George Pankiewicz Douglas Boyd	UK Met Office
Wednesday 15th February	10:00am	Using a case-study approach to improve the Madden-Julian oscillation in the Hadley Centre model	Nicholas Klingaman	National Centre for Atmospheric Science-Climate, University of Reading
Tuesday 14th February	2:00pm	Understanding the varied response of the extratropical storm tracks to climate change	Paul O'Gorman	MIT
Wednesday 8th February	10:00am	Sampling of clouds and treatment of topography in the UM radiation scheme	James Manners	UKMO

The venue is the seminar room (Floor 9, east side) at 700 Collins Street, Docklands

Seminars are run typically with duration of 30 to 45 minutes + questions. Dates and times are shown. If you are a vistor to the Bureau, you need to register at reception in the foyer.

For further details contact the seminar coordinators

ABSTRACTS

Wednesday 16th May, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Economic Impacts of Tropical Cyclones on Western Australia

John McBride
CAWCR

This study documents and analyses the economic impact of tropical cyclones on the State of Western Australia (WA). The study was carried out for the WA Government under the Indian Ocean Climate Change Initiative (IOCI).
Insured losses to Western Australia due to direct damage by tropical cyclones average at 28 Million dollars per year. This is small compared to the cost of a number of individual natural disasters across the nation, for example 4296 million (2011 dollars) for the 1999 Sydney hailstorm, 4090 million for cyclone Tracy (Darwin 1974), and1019 million for the thunderstorm and hail event in Perth in March 2010.
Several examples are given of tropical cyclone related disruptions to mining in Western Australia having an impact on the economy and on the trade balance. The national trade deficit of January 2012 was attributed in part to the impact of mine closures and port closures due to cyclone Heidi. It is proposed that the major economic impact of tropical cyclones to WA is not the cost of damage repair when cyclone-related disasters occur. Rather it is the cost to an industry conducting business in a cyclone-prone area. This ongoing mitigation cost to industry, particularly the mining sector is currently not publicly documented.
The concept is presented of extreme disasters. For example the time series of (inflation-adjusted) tropical cyclone losses for Australia is dominated by one very large event, Tropical Cyclone Tracy. Any figures on mean annual losses or comparisons of cyclones with other hazards are changed totally according to whether or not this one event is included.
Projections for changes in cyclone behaviour in a warmer climate are that the intensity will increase and the frequency will decrease. Increasing insurance payouts over recent decades for disasters are believed to be dominated by increasing vulnerability due to development of population and infrastructure in coastal regions. If the climate change projections are correct and the intensity of cyclones increases by 10%, we are not going to be able to detect this in damage figures. This is unless the number of Tracy, Katrina-type extreme cyclone events increases.
Tropical cyclones also have a positive impact in Western Australia in that they are major contributors to annual coastal rainfall.
A number of research need have been identified: a) to document and study the ongoing impact on the mining sector, and b) to study changes in frequency of extreme cyclone events (in an economic sense) in a warmer climate. This will depend on changes in vulnerability as well as changes in the meteorological hazard.

Monday 14th May, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference Room, 6th floor, 700 Collins St

Why a +2°C world won't solve Africa's climate change problems

Francois A. Engelbrecht
CSIR Natural Resources and the Environment, South Africa

The conformal-cubic atmospheric model (CCAM) of the CSIRO is applied for a wide range of applications at the CSIR in South Africa. These include short-range weather weather forecasting, seasonal forecasting and the projection of future climate change. The model is also applied over multiple spatial scales, ranging from simulations of 1 km resolution in the horizontal over small areas using a strongly stretched grid, to global simulations at quasi-uniform horizontal resolutions of about 200 km. This variety of applications will be briefly reviewed in this talk, and it will be illustrated that application of the model across a range of spatial scales and at time-scales where the simulations can be verified, increases the confidence in the model's projections of future climate change.
The emphasis of talk will be on one of the largest regional climate modelling experiments performed to date over the African continent, which was completed recently at the CSIR using CCAM. Six coupled global climate model projections of AR4 of the IPCC were downscaled to a resolution of about 60 km over Africa. The bias-corrected sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and sea-ice distributions of the CSIRO Mk 3.5, GFDL2.1, GFDL2.0, HadCM2, ECHAM5 and Miroc-Medres, all for the A2 emission scenario, were used to force the CCAM simulations over the period 1961-2100. A multiple-downscaling approach was followed, and a digital filter technique was employed to preserve the large-scale patterns of the intermediate coarser CCAM simulations within the 60 km resolution simulations. The downscaled simulations provide an ensemble of regional climate change scenarios over Africa.
The projections indicate that large portions of the southern African region and the Saharah may be expected to warm at about twice the global rate of temperature increase. That is, even if the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC)'s target of restraining the rise in global average temperature to 2 °C is reached, it would still imply temperature increases in the order of 4 °C over large parts of the African continent. Such drastic rises in the average surface temperature are likely to impact significantly on the water security, agriculture and biodiversity of the continent. Another robust message from the projections is that the southern African region is plausible to become drier and East Africa wetter, against this pattern of strong warming. The underlying dynamic circulation mechanisms responsible for these changes will also be discussed in the presentation.

Friday 11th May, 02:00pm - 04:00pm, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

The “Pipeline” Workflow Tool for Climate Model Data Analysis

Tim Erwin
CMAR

In this talk, Tim Erwin of CMAR Aspendale, will cover what the 'pipeline' (workflow) tool is, how it works and give some examples of analysis. He will also cover current activities in the community and how this will evolve into the NeCTAR virtual laboratory.
Model outputs from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) are now available. These simulations have higher resolution, longer time scales and more variables than previous simulations, and are projected to require more than 12 petabytes of storage. The challenges of organising files for analysis, running multiple analyses and storage limitations will be significant.
To overcome many of these challenges the climate model analysis community needs a coordinated approach to allow sharing of code and common processed data, and to improve the efficiency of data processing. To enable this we have developed a proof-of-concept framework that allows the construction of a data processing 'pipeline' implemented using the Python programming language.
A pipeline consists of a set of descriptions of data processing tasks, a description of the input and output data of each task and the environment required to run each task, allowing researchers to run analyses in a single step. The framework is aware of the structure of CMIP style data, allowing sets of data to be described by scenario, realisation, variable and data processing method. The framework represents a tool that enables the reuse of existing code and simplification of complex data processing tasks. Combined with a collaborative approach to data archiving, either across a research group or a broader community, it will enable significantly more efficient data processing, analysis and storage.

Wednesday 2nd May, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Long-wave Explicit and Short-wave Implicit (LESI) in the context of nesting

Brian Sanderson
Acadia University, Nova Scotia

The scales of interest can vary greatly within the domain of coastal oceanographic model, making nesting a method of interest. Coastal ocean models also confront the difficulty of computing a fast barotropic mode and much slower modes associated with advection, geostrophy, and buoyancy.
The present work demonstrates a variation on the semi-implicit method. Weighted Jacobi iterations are used to low-pass filter the fast barotropic mode so that long wavelengths can be treated explicitly. The short-wave part of the fast barotopic mode is still treated implicitly. Comparisons are made with other methods (semi-implicit, fully-explicit, split-explicit) --- particularly in the context of nesting.

Monday 30th April, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference Rooms 1 and 2, 6th floor, 700 Collins St

The correction of forecast errors based on MOS: The impact of initial condition and model errors

Stéphane Vannitsem
Institut Royal Météorologique de Belgique

The dynamical properties of forecasts corrected using linear MOS schemes are explored, with emphasis on the respective role of model and initial condition uncertainties. Analytical and numerical investigations of low-order systems displaying chaos indicate that MOS schemes are able to partly correct the impact of both initial and model errors on model forecasting. Nevertheless the amplitude of the correction is much more sensitive to the presence of (state-dependent) model errors and if initial condition errors are much larger than model uncertainties, MOS schemes become less effective. Furthermore, the amplitude of the MOS correction depends strongly on the statistical properties of the phase space velocity difference between the model and reference systems, such as its mean and its covariance with the model predictors in the MOS scheme. Large corrections are expected when the predictors are closely related to the sources of model error. In addition an analysis of ECMWF forecasts over Belgium is performed, revealing spatially-dependent sources of model errors.

Thursday 5th April, 11:00am - 12:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

The effect of the South Pacific Convergence Zone on the termination of El Niño events and the meridional asymmetry of ENSO

Shayne McGregor
UNSW

During large El Nino events the westerly wind response to the eastern equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) shifts southward during boreal winter and early spring, reaching latitudes of 5-7◦ S. The resulting meridional asymmetry, along with the related seasonal weakening of wind anomalies on the equator are key elements in the termination of strong El Nino events. Using anintermediate complexity atmosphere model it is demonstrated that these features result from a weakening of the climatological wind speeds south of the equator towards the end of the calendar year. The reduced climatological wind speeds, which are associated with the seasonal intensification of the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ), lead to anomalous boundary layer Ekman pumping and a reduced surface momentum damping of the combined boundary layer/lower troposphere surface wind response to El Nino. This allows the associated zonal wind anomalies to shift south of the equator. Furthermore, using a linear shallow water ocean model it is demonstrated that this southward wind shift plays a prominent role in changing zonal mean equatorial heat content and is solely responsible for establishing the meridional asymmetry of thermocline depth in the turnaround (recharge/discharge) phase of ENSO. This result calls into question the sole role of oceanic Rossby waves in the phase synchronised termination of El Nino events and suggests that the development of a realistic climatological SPCZ in DJF/MAM is one of the key factors in the seasonal termination of strong El Nino events.

Wednesday 4th April, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Weather radars for climate science

Scott Collis
ARM Climate Research Facility, Argonne National Laboratory , USA

The ARM Climate Research Facility has a long history of sensing in-situ and in the column however these techniques are unable to capture the kinematic and microphysical nature of precipitating cloud systems. To this end precipitation sensitive scanning radars have been deployed to the ARM fixed sites in Oklahoma, Alaska and on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. These radars record regular volumes of reflectivity, radial velocity and polarimetric variable which, on their own, have limited use to cloud and climate scientists. As well as giving an overview of the facility including the new radars this presentation will discuss the processes and challenges involved in retrieving four dimensional geophysical parameters from this remote sensing data.

Wednesday 28th March, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Recent studies with an aerosol process model: GLOMAP, UKCA and the stratosphere

Kathryn Emmerson
WEP Aspendale

The global aerosol microphysics model GLOMAP-mode has been developed in Leeds since 2003. It simulates the aerosol lifecycle, resolving new particle formation and growth to climate-relevant sizes. The code is a 2-moment modal scheme that has thus far been evaluated for tropospheric applications. The scheme has already been implemented into UKCA - the UK chemistry and aerosol model, and has been used primarily to investigate the role of tropospheric aerosol on the earth system and climate.
This seminar will cover the features of GLOMAP-MODE with some recent science highlights from the University of Leeds. Prior to joining CSIRO, I coupled the MODE scheme to a stratospheric chemistry version of UKCA, and used the resulting model to look at the evolution of aerosol from the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in 1991. The model is evaluated with size resolved balloon-borne measurements from around the world.

Monday 26th March, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

A Review of NWP and Climate Research and Operations at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)

Michael J. Uddstrom
NIWA

This talk will provide some background information on NIWA (what it is and what it does), then go on to outline relevant NIWA research activities, its operational delivery platform EcoConnect, and NIWA’s HPC resources and development plans.
NIWA adopted the Unified Model for Climate research in 1996, and from 1999 onwards, extended its use to cover mesoscale data assimilation and limited area weather prediction (NZLAM). These focus areas (climate modelling and NWP) have led to a number of research and infrastructure development activities that will be outlined in this talk, including: chemistry (UKCA) and regional (HadRM3P to HadGEM3-RA) climate model development and evaluation, Land Surface Model evaluation (JULES), very high resolution NWP models (e.g. NZCONV), data assimilation (4DVAR / 3DAVR evaluation), tornado simulation, NWP model verification and post processing system development (MOS), and fire weather forecasting. NWP model output is also being used to force “downstream” models, including CFD simulations at O(10)m resolution (Gerris), sea state (WW3 global and regional), sea level (storm surge, RiCOM), and river hydrology where stream flow observations are assimilated into a distributed catchment model (TopNet) via a Retrospective Ensemble Kalman Filter and forced by NZLAM output. Uses of the cylc meta-scheduler developed at NIWA and recently adopted by the Met Office to replace SCS, and of our verification package (RVER) will also be described. Finally, the main features of NIWA’s operational forecasting system (EcoConnect Operations Centre and the platforms it runs on) and its information delivery and decision tool (the EcoConnect Information Delivery System (EIDS) client) will be outlined.

Wednesday 21st March, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Intel’s HPC Strategy in Parallelism on the Path to Exascale

Joe Curley
Technical Computing Marketing, Hillsboro, Oregon

Intel Architecture has proven to be extremely successful in satisfying the computational needs of engineers and scientists around the globe. The path to Exascale will require significant advances in massively parallel algorithms; challenges remain in hardware and software architecture to enable practical exa-scale systems. This session will provide a high level overview of how Intel is approaching the architectural challenges for both hardware and software.

Wednesday 14th March, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Supporting public health strategies for climate-sensitive infectious diseases: an overview of experiences of multi-disciplinary partnerships at the interface between the public health, environmental and research communities

Emily Firth
Health and Climate Foundation

In recent years, WHO and partners in the environmental, research and public health fields have been exploring the interface between public health decision-making and knowledge on the environmental influences on epidemic-prone infectious diseases. Led by WHO, the partnerships represent various sectors and disciplines, regional and country partners, academic institutions and other international organizations.
With a specific focus on meningococcal meningitis, leptospirosis and yellow fever, this seminar gives an overview of the experiences to date and lessons learned from developing cross-sectoral initiatives which aim to improve public health decisions by integrating operational research outputs and knowledge on the climatic, environmental, social and demographic influences on disease transmission and epidemics particularly in affected parts of Africa, South America and SE Asia/Pacific. In an interactive format, the seminar is an opportunity to exchange information and ideas on approaches towards closing the gap between the public health and climate/environment communities to improve health outcomes.

Friday 9th March, 3:00pm - 4:00pm, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Excitation of moist convection over the Pacific warm pool: An alternative view

Rit Carbone
NCAR

This study employs a four year timeseries of GHRSST and CMORPH (rainfall) satellite products. Analyzed in tandem, these data facilitate new insights on high frequency ocean-atmosphere interactions at small spatial scales. Conventional work on the climatology of SST and rainfall has emphasized regional scales and a coincidence of heavy rainfall with SST maxima. Here we have examined the potential role of mesoscale SST gradients in the excitation of convective rainfall events. A pivotal assumption is that the onset of rainfall events will exhibit a statistical preference for SST gradient zones provided the resulting lower boundary forcing is sufficiently strong. Such gradients are transient; exhibit a temporal scale that is daily to weekly; and have a GHRSST-resolved amplitude of order 1oC/100km. Historical shipboard observations have documented gradients in the warm pool up to 3C on scales of 10 km or less.
As it turns out, most rainfall events are indeed triggered over SST gradients, most strongly correlated with convergence maxima inferred from the Laplacian of SST. The events are triggered in a heterogeneous SST environment at slightly above average regional SST values and, generally speaking, not near SST maxima. In the bigger picture, the significance of these findings is unclear. It is not yet known to what extent, if any, such excitation occurs systematically with respect to larger scales of motion associated with enhanced forcing by tropical free waves.

Wednesday 7th March, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

The impact of soil moisture and convectively-generated waves on the initiation of a West African mesoscale convective system

Cathryn Birch
University of Leeds

A mesoscale convective system (MCS) was observed over northeast Mali as part of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) on 31st July 2006. Observations of this case suggested that the soil-moisture heterogeneity and atmospheric gravity waves emitted from a ‘parent’ MCS were important trigger mechanisms for the system. This study uses high resolution Met Office Unified Model (MetUM) simulations to assess the importance of the synoptic circulation, land-surface and gravity waves in the initiation and development of the MCS. It is found that the synoptic-scale circulation, specified by the atmospheric analysis, was the most important factor for the successful simulation of the MCS. If the detailed location of the initiation of the system is to be forecast accurately, the land-surface, i.e. the soil moisture, must be adequately represented. In order to reproduce the timing of the secondary initiation of convection correctly the model must be able to capture the gravity waves that are emitted by the existing system.

Wednesday 29th February, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Impacts of the Madden-Julian Oscillation in the Indian Ocean and on the Western Australian coast

Andrew Marshall and Harry Hendon
CAWCR

We assess the evolution of the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) in the Indian Ocean using reanalyses from the POAMA Ensemble Ocean Data Assimilation System (PEODAS), and explore the remote influence of the MJO on the Western Australian coast.
A 30-90d equatorial wave signal appears in the surface and sub-surface equatorial Indian Ocean analysis of PEODAS in association with the MJO. Downwelling (upwelling) Kelvin waves and Ekman convergence (divergence) are driven by the active (suppressed) convective phases of the MJO. When eastward-propagating downwelling Kelvin waves reach the Indonesian boundary, a coastally-trapped component propagates southeast along the Indonesian coastline, delivering high heat content to the north of Australia concurrently with an increase in heat flux into the ocean during the suppressed phase of the MJO. During the November-April months, MJO easterlies south of the equator give rise to southward Ekman transport of these high temperature anomalies onto the northwest (NW) Australian shelf.
The warming on the NW shelf is communicated down the west coast as a coastally trapped wave, as evidenced by a coherent increase in sea level at Fremantle and an associated southward surface current extending down the coast of Western Australia consistent with an increased Leeuwin current. We conclude that the MJO signal in Fremantle sea level does not result from transmission of equatorial waves onto the Western Australian coast, but rather it is directly forced on the NW shelf through southward Ekman transport onto the shelf and surface heat fluxes in the easterly phase of the MJO.

Wednesday 22nd February, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Diurnal Cycles and the Stable Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Vaughan Barras
CAWCR

The representation of the diurnal cycle in the planetary boundary layer and its transition from a well mixed to stable condition has been an ongoing challenge in model development. Since its inception in 2001, the GEWEX Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study (GABLS) has devised targeted model intercomparison studies to try and better understand near-surface physical processes and improve the representation of the PBL in regional and large scale models. In November, 2011 a workshop was held at ECMWF to mark the 10th anniversary of GABLS and to discuss the state-of-the-art of boundary layer modelling with particular reference to the modelling of the diurnal cycle and the stable boundary layer. At the meeting, some key questions were raised that are pertinent to current areas of ACCESS PBL research.
This presentation will be comprised of two parts. First, a brief summary of key workshop presentations will be given followed by a discussion of the recommendations made by each of the working groups. The second part of the talk will outline two areas of ACCESS PBL research relating to science questions raised at the meeting, namely, the sensitivity of NWP models to changes in surface drag and the representation of scalar variables during the evening transition. The current status of this work will be presented and plans for future research will be opened for discussion.

Friday 17th February, 2:00pm - 3:00pm, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

A New Structure of Error Covariance Matrices and Their Adaptive Estimation in EnKF Assimilation

Xiaogu Zheng
College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University

Correct estimation of the forecast and observational error covariance matrices is crucial for the accuracy of a data assimilation algorithm. In this talk, I will present a new structure of the forecast error covariance matrix to account for model error, and an adaptive procedure combined with a second-order least squares method to estimate the inflated forecast and observational error covariance matrices.
The proposed estimation methods and new structure of the forecast error covariance matrix are tested on the well-known Lorenz-96 model and two-dimensional Shallow Water Equation model, both of which are associated with spatially correlated observational systems. Our experiments show that the new structure of the forecast error covariance matrix and the adaptive estimation procedure leads to significant improvement of the assimilation results.

Wednesday 15th February, 2:00pm - 4:00pm, Conference Rooms 1 and 2, 6th floor, 700 Collins St

UM status, plans & collaboration update

George Pankiewicz
UKMO

An overview of Unified Model status and plans at the Met Office together with a collaboration update will be provided. This will include a summary of the current Met Office NWP production system and its performance, as well as highlights from recent Parallel Suite upgrades, including the use of hybrid data assimilation, and changes to the suites to allow high resolution (1.5km) models to be driven directly from the global model. Future NWP plans will be presented including development of a convective ensemble prediction system, Parallel Suite plans for the next two years, and the next generation dynamical core. At longer timescales, plans for the GloSea seasonal forecasting system will be presented, with a look to decadal forecasting. The strategy for global model development and evaluation will be presented, and if time allows, a quick tour of recent HadGEM2 CMIP5 results. FInally, the talk will provide an update on progress with collaborative model development and a look at new UM partnership arrangements.

Developments in technical infrastructure for the UM

Douglas Boyd
UKMO

Rose (also known as "MUMTI", SCS replacement, UMUI replacement) is a set of tools to replace existing technical infrastructure such as the Suite Control System (SCS) and GHUI-based user interfaces (UMUI, OPSUI, VARUI, etc). Rose will provide a common solution for managing, configuring and running suites of scientific applications. The presentation will provide an update on the technology being proposed and provide a rough timetable for migration.
Ever since the UM was introduced operationally at the Met Office in 1991, it has undergone continual development to improve its science and enhance its capabilities. The UM system development team deliver infrastructure changes vital in enabling the pull-through of the scientific advancements in both climate and weather prediction. The presentation will provide an overview of the many changes underway and some of those planned for the future.

Wednesday 15th February, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Using a case-study approach to improve the Madden-Julian oscillation in the Hadley Centre model

Nicholas Klingaman
National Centre for Atmospheric Science-Climate, University of Reading

The Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) represents the dominant mode of sub-seasonal variability in tropical convection. It is an important source of monthly predictability for tropical and extra-tropical rainfall and circulation, via its interactions with the various monsoon systems and its teleconnections to other modes of variability such as the North Atlantic Oscillation.
Climate models typically struggle to simulate the period, amplitude and propagation of the MJO; the Hadley Centre model (HadGEM3) is no exception. In its default configuration, HadGEM3 produces roughly half of the observed MJO activity. Through a series of initialised hindcast experiments, it is shown that the MJO is HadGEM3 is highly sensitive to the entrainment rate for mid-level and deep convection and to the parameterisation of the convective momentum transport. With increased entrainment, HadGEM3 reproduces observed levels of MJO activity, although events still dissipate too quickly.
This talk will also introduce the HadGEM3-KPP model, assembled at Reading from the HadGEM3 atmosphere and the K Profile Parameterisation mixed-layer ocean models. The HadGEM3-KPP framework allows interactions between the atmosphere and a high-vertical-resolution upper ocean, while remaining computationally inexpensive and allowing the mean state to be corrected by prescribed temperature and salinity adjustments. The behaviour of the MJO in an initial HadGEM3-KPP simulation will be briefly examined.

Tuesday 14th February, 2:00pm - 3:00pm, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Understanding the varied response of the extratropical storm tracks to climate change

Paul O'Gorman
MIT

Simulations of 21st century climate change do not indicate a general weakening or strengthening of eddies in the extratropical storm tracks. Rather, the simulated response depends on the season and hemisphere in question, with a strengthening in the southern hemisphere and an increase in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of intensity in both hemispheres. The magnitude of the simulated response also depends strongly on the climate model used. In this talk, I will show how mean available potential energy may be used to better understand changes in storm track intensity, both for global-warming scenarios and for more idealized simulations over a wide range of climates.

Wednesday 8th February, 10:00am - 11:00am, Conference/Meeting Rooms, 9th floor east, 700 Collins St

Sampling of clouds and treatment of topography in the UM radiation scheme

James Manners
UKMO

This talk will present two papers that have accompanied recent updates to the Unified Model's radiation scheme. The first, "Radiative transfer over resolved topographic features for high-resolution weather prediction" describes a parametrisation of the first order effects of surface features on the radiative fluxes. This includes the interaction of direct solar radiation with sloping surfaces, shading by surrounding terrain, and the effects of limited sky-view and surface area on night-time cooling.
The second, "Fast radiative transfer methods to improve the temporal sampling of clouds in NWP and climate models" describes a cheap scheme to calculate the effects of the changing cloud field on surface fluxes and heating rates. This involves only three monochromatic calculations representing the optically thin, or "window" regions of the atmospheric spectrum.
Other recent work on radiation scheme developments will also be briefly outlined.
Manners J., Vosper S. and Roberts N. 2011. Radiative transfer over resolved topographic features for high-resolution weather prediction Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.956
Manners J, Thelen JC, Petch J, Hill P, Edwards JM. 2009. Two fast radiative transfer methods to improve the temporal sampling of clouds in NWP and climate models. Q. J. R. Meteorol. Soc. 135: 457-468 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.385

A PDF copy of all the presented seminars can be found at the "Find Seminar Presentation Documents..." link at the top of the page (available to BoM staff only). Seminars for previous years can be found at the "Goto list of BMRC seminars for ..." site at the top of the page. In addition, a list of actual videos from some previous seminars is held in the library and can be found on the catalogue by entering Series: BMRC, Format: Video. If you would like to have a talk videotaped please contact the seminar coordinator. Note: as of 2005, it is standard practice for all seminars to be recorded as wmv movies, with the permission of the presenter.

If you would like to know more details of coordinating seminars (if, for example, you are hosting a visitor who will be giving a seminar and the regular seminar coordinator is not available), have a look at the document, "Instructions for CAWCR Seminar Coordinator"