Simulations of the 2004 North American Monsoon: NAMAP2

The second phase of the North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME) Model Assessment Project (NAMAP2) was carried out to provide a coordinated set of simulations from global and regional models of the 2004 warm season across the North American monsoon domain. This project follows an earlier assessment, called NAMAP, that preceded the 2004 field season of the North American Monsoon Experiment. Six global and four regional models are all forced with prescribed, time-varying ocean surface temperatures. Metrics for model simulation of warm season precipitation processes developed in NAMAP are examined that pertain to the seasonal progression and diurnal cycle of precipitation, monsoon onset, surface turbulent fluxes, and simulation of the low-level jet circulation over the Gulf of California. Assessment of the metrics is shown to be limited by continuing uncertainties in spatially averaged observations, demonstrating that modeling and observational analysis capabilities need to be developed concurrently. Simulations of the core subregion (CORE) of monsoonal precipitation in global models have improved since NAMAP, despite the lack of a proper low-level jet circulation in these simulations. Some regional models run at higher resolution still exhibit the tendency observed in NAMAP to overestimate precipitation in the CORE subregion; this is shown to involve both convective and resolved components of the total precipitation. The variability of precipitation in the Arizona/New Mexico (AZNM) subregion is simulated much better by the regional models compared with the global models, illustrating the importance of transient circulation anomalies (prescribed as lateral boundary conditions) for simulating precipitation in the northern part of the monsoon domain. This suggests that seasonal predictability derivable from lower boundary conditions may be limited in the AZNM subregion.open131

The CTSA Consortium's Catalog of Assets for Translational and Clinical Health Research (CATCHR)

The 61 CTSA Consortium sites are home to valuable programs and infrastructure supporting translational science and all are charged with ensuring that such investments translate quickly to improved clinical care. Catalog of Assets for Translational and Clinical Health Research (CATCHR) is the Consortium's effort to collect and make available information on programs and resources to maximize efficiency and facilitate collaborations. By capturing information on a broad range of assets supporting the entire clinical and translational research spectrum, CATCHR aims to provide the necessary infrastructure and processes to establish and maintain an open‐access, searchable database of consortium resources to support multisite clinical and translational research studies. Data are collected using rigorous, defined methods, with the resulting information made visible through an integrated, searchable Web‐based tool. Additional easy‐to‐use Web tools assist resource owners in validating and updating resource information over time. In this paper, we discuss the design and scope of the project, data collection methods, current results, and future plans for development and sustainability. With increasing pressure on research programs to avoid redundancy, CATCHR aims to make available information on programs and core facilities to maximize efficient use of resources.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106893/1/cts12144.pd

Monsoons: global energetics and local physics as drivers of past, present and future monsoons

Global constraints on momentum and energy govern the structure of the zonal mean tropical circulation and rainfall. The continental-scale monsoon systems are also facets of a momentum- and energy-constrained global circulation, but their modern and paleo variability deviates substantially from that of the longitudinal mean through mechanisms neither fully understood nor well simulated. A framework grounded in global constraints yet encompassing the complexities of monsoon dynamics is needed to identify the causes of mismatch between theory, models, and observations and, ultimately, improve regional climate projection. In a first step towards this goal, disparate regional processes must be distilled into gross measures of energy flow in and out of continents and from the surface to the tropopause, so that monsoon dynamics may be coherently diagnosed across modern and paleo observations and across idealized and comprehensive simulations. Accounting for zonal asymmetries in the circulation, land/ocean differences in surface fluxes, and the character of convective systems, such a monsoon framework would integrate our understanding at all relevant scales: from the fine details of how moisture and energy are lifted in the updrafts of thunderclouds, up to the global circulations

The CTSA Consortium's Catalog of Assets for Translational and Clinical Health Research (CATCHR): The Ctsa Consortium's Catchr

The 61 CTSA Consortium sites are home to valuable programs and infrastructure supporting translational science and all are charged with ensuring that such investments translate quickly to improved clinical care. CATCHR (Catalog of Assets for Translational and Clinical Health Research) is the Consortium’s effort to collect and make available information on programs and resources to maximize efficiency and facilitate collaborations. By capturing information on a broad range of assets supporting the entire clinical and translational research spectrum, CATCHR aims to provide the necessary infrastructure and processes to establish and maintain an open-access, searchable database of consortium resources to support multi-site clinical and translational research studies. Data is collected using rigorous, defined methods, with the resulting information made visible through an integrated, searchable web-based tool. Additional easy to use web tools assist resource owners in validating and updating resource information over time. In this article, we discuss the design and scope of the project, data collection methods, current results, and future plans for development and sustainability. With increasing pressure on research programs to avoid redundancy, CATCHR aims to make available information on programs and core facilities to maximize efficient use of resources

Deception

can the cat be trusted? sometimes I wonder what is going on at home when I'm at work! pets can be playful and mischievou

Seeking Companionship

I love cats, and imagined just for fun what might a cat's personal ad look like? Or, could be it a human seeking a companion

Breakfast in Bed with Cat

I like being whimsical and having fun with words.. especially when it comes to one of my favorite subjects- cats. I hope it brings a smile to your face as you read it (even if you don't have a cat)

Zonal mean wind, the Indian monsoon, and July drying in the western Atlantic subtropics

A fully closed zonal momentum budget is decomposed to explain the occurrence of zonal mean easterlies at subtropical latitudes in July. Eddy momentum fluxes from stationary eddies, most prominently the western sector of the Indian monsoon Tibetan High, are the primary mechanism governing the negative tendency of zonal mean momentum near 20°N–30°N. This strengthening of the zonal mean easterlies in July is significantly correlated with the concurrent strengthening of the North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH) and the rainfall deficit in the western North Atlantic (WATL). Interannual variations of the Indian monsoon reflect changes in the strength of these zonal mean easterlies, with downstream teleconnections on the westward displacement of the NASH and precipitation in the WATL. An increase in rainfall in India from June to July corresponds to a decrease in rainfall in the WATL. Key Points July zonal mean easterlies correlated with NASH enhancement in WATL July zonal mean easterlies correlated with MSD enhancement in WATL Indian monsoon rainfall negatively correlated with rainfall in WAT

February Drying in Southeastern Brazil and the Australian Monsoon: Global Mechanism for a Regional Rainfall Feature

Abstract A dry February rainfall signal in southeastern Brazil is shown to be a robust, repeatable feature of climatology. This February depression or minimum in climatological rain curves has an amplitude of about 30% of the seasonal mean and coincides with a poleward excursion of tropical barotropic easterlies to about 25°S in austral midsummer. Momentum budget decomposition indicates that stationary eddy momentum flux [u*υ*] near 150 hPa in Australian longitudes is a main sink in that latitude belt’s zonal momentum budget. A physical linkage among these phenomena is suggested by statistically significant interannual correlations among February anomalies of southeastern Brazil rainfall, zonal-mean zonal wind, and indices of the Australian monsoon. To test a causality hypothesis that the sharply peaked Australian region monsoon drives the sharp climatological dry signal over Brazil, an observation-inspired tropospheric heating signal near Australia is added to the temperature equation of the full-physics Community Atmosphere Model. Results indicate the near linearity of the global subtropical responses for the modest (roughly 1 and 2 K day−1) magnitudes and scales of imposed heating. Consistent with the hypothesis, this imposed heating robustly causes easterly changes to subtropical, barotropic, zonal-mean momentum, a westward displacement of the mean synoptic-scale pattern in the western Atlantic (the western edge of the subtropical high), and reduced rainfall in southeastern Brazil. These results are closely analogous to the previous findings on a related boreal summer subtropical signal

Asian Monsoon Forcing of Subtropical Easterlies in the Community Atmosphere Model: Summer Climate Implications for the Western Atlantic

Abstract The effects of a progressively enhanced Asian summer monsoon on the mean zonal wind are examined in a series of experiments using the Community Atmosphere Model version 4 (CAM4). The response of the barotropic mean zonal wind varies in a linear fashion with the forcings of 5, 10, and 20 W m−2 in net radiation over South Asia. The authors increase the strength of the monsoon by making the South Asian land surface hotter (via lower soil albedo). This leads to an enhanced Rossby wave source region over the Balkan Peninsula at 45°N, northwest of the upper-level Tibetan high (TH). Equatorward propagation of Rossby waves causes stationary eddy momentum flux divergence (SEMFD) to the south of this source region. This local area of SEMFD produces easterly tendencies of the barotropic part of the mean zonal wind in the subtropics. As the easterly mean flow strengthens, so do low-level easterlies across the subtropical Atlantic, leading to a westward displacement of the North Atlantic subtropical high (NASH) on its equatorward flank. The western intensification of the NASH causes drying in the west Atlantic and neighboring land masses primarily because of near-surface wind divergence in the anticyclone. These modeling results confirm the mechanisms deduced in the authors’ recent observational analysis of the mean seasonal cycle’s midsummer drought