Marine Science Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2013
Keywords
reanalysis, sea ice, diurnal cycle, Antarctica
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50336
Abstract
The diurnal cycles of near-surface meteorological parameters over Antarctic sea ice in six widely used atmospheric reanalyses are validated against observations from Ice Station Weddell. The station drifted from February through May 1992 and provided the most extensive set of meteorological observations ever collected in the Antarctic sea ice zone. For the radiative and turbulent surface fluxes, both the amplitude and shape of the diurnal cycles vary considerably among different reanalyses. Near-surface temperature, specific humidity, and wind speed in the reanalyses all feature small diurnal ranges, which, in most cases, fall within the uncertainties of the observed cycle. A skill score approach revealed the superiority of the ERA-Interim reanalysis in reproducing the observed diurnal cycles. An explanation for the shortcomings in the reanalyses is their failure to capture the diurnal cycle in cloud cover fraction, which leads to errors in other quantities as well. Apart from the diurnal cycles, NCEP-CFSR gave the best error statistics.
Rights Information
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, v. 118, issue 10, p. 4194-4204
©2013. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
Scholar Commons Citation
Tastula, Esa-Matti; Vihma, Timo; Andreas, Edgar L.; and Galperin, Boris, "Validation of the Diurnal Cycles in Atmospheric Reanalyses Over Antarctic Sea Ice" (2013). Marine Science Faculty Publications. 1494.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_facpub/1494
