A simple ocean performance metrics applied to historical CMIP5 simulations

While in atmosphere models it is already common to define objective metrics to investigate how well an atmospheric model performs compared to observations, this is not too common for ocean models. Here we define a simple metrics encompassing the 3D structure of bias and absolute error to estimate the performance of ocean models and we apply it to the historical CMIP5 simulations from 1950 to 2005. Ocean model 3D temperature and salinity fields are compared to the PHC climatology for the major ocean basins. For each 3D grid point of the PHC dataset bias and absolute error of the model climatology are calculated and then volume- averaged over each ocean basin. An average CMIP5 model error is calculated for each ocean basin and used as a reference when investigating a particular model - similarly as has been done for the atmosphere by Reichler and Kim (2008) for CMIP3 models. Ocean surface temperature is generally reasonably well simulated by CMIP5 models and mean absolute errors amount to around 1 K which is comparable to the interannual variability. But in 500 to 1000 m - depending on the ocean basin and on the model - mean absolute errors of up to 4 K are detected which clearly exceed the interannual variability of generally below 1 K. For salinity mean absolute errors are in all levels clearly higher than the interannual variability. For example at the surface the mean absolute error amounts to up to 1 psu while the interannual variability is below 0.2 psu. Even if investigating biases which allows for cancelling out of errors within a basin instead of the mean absolute error this statement still holds in many cases. This means that there is a lot of scope for improvement of the simulation of the vertical structure of the ocean

Examining the relationship between daily changes in support and smoking around a self-set quit date

This study was funded by the Swiss National Foundation (100014_124516). We would like to thank all students who helped with data collection.Peer reviewedPostprin

Implementing a Coordinated Care Model for Sex Trafficked Minors in Smaller Cities

Background Addressing the social and clinical service needs of minors who have been sexually exploited remains a challenge across the United States. While larger metropolitan centers have established shelters and service provision specific for trafficked persons, in smaller cities and more rural settings, survivors of trafficking (especially minors) are usually served by multiple, disparate social service and health providers working across different systems. Sexually exploited minors present an even greater challenge due to intersections with child welfare and juvenile justice systems, histories of abuse by family that limit placement options, and limited services that address the complex medical, mental health, and psychosocial needs of these youth. Major health organizations have recommended a coordinated care model that integrates the therapeutic and social service needs of trafficked persons including housing and education; implementation of such service provision requires intensive, multi-sectoral collaboration. Methods We present two case studies from an anti-trafficking coalition established in a smaller urban area. Findings/Conclusions Multi-sector collaboration requires the development of policies and protocols for addressing the diverse needs (acute and ongoing) of trafficked minors who are often “dual jurisdiction,” involved in both the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. Principles of care including autonomy, empowerment, protection, and safety may be at odds as systems may approach these youth differently. A clearly identified care coordinator can help navigate across these systems and facilitate communication among service providers while protecting client privacy, confidentiality, and autonomy. Assessing the quality of services provided and accountability among service providers remain significant challenges, especially in resource limited settings

Multi-resolution climate modelling with the AWI Climate Model (AWI-CM)

The recently established AWI Climate Model (AWI-CM), a coupled configuration of the Finite Element Sea Ice-Ocean Model (FESOM) with the atmospheric model ECHAM6, uses a novel multi-resolution approach: Its ocean component builds on a finite element dynamical core supporting unstructured triangular surface grids, allowing to distribute the grid points in a flexible manner. This allows to concentrate resolution in dynamically important regions, with a continuous transition zone to the coarser resolution in other areas. The model is an ideal tool to study the influence of explicit resolution of smaller scales in dedicated experiments. The unique – spatially seamless – approach might also be of benefit when it comes to temporally seamless prediction, bridging the gap between numerical weather prediction and climate models. A first benchmark set-up of AWI-CM with moderate resolution in the atmosphere (T63) and 25km in key ocean areas, e.g. around the equator, achieved a similar overall simulation performance in a long control simulation compared to well-established CMIP5 models. In particular, the (isotropically) increased equatorial resolution considerably increased the realism of TIW activity and ENSO-related variability compared to standard resolutions. The potential of AWI-CM is further exploited within the EU project PRIMAVERA in the HighResMIP of CMIP6, where we plan to contribute simulations with eddy-resolving resolutions (1/12° or 9-10 km) in key areas of the global ocean, such as the Gulf Stream-North Atlantic Current region, the Agulhas retroflection zone, or the Arctic basin. First simulations show distinct improvements with respect to the development of deep temperature and salinity biases in the North Atlantic Ocean and an overall improvement of surface biases. At even higher resolutions of 4.5 km locally in the Arctic, linear kinematic features emerge in the simulated sea ice distribution with potentially strong impacts on air-sea fluxes in the coupled system. Although the tested set-ups are computationally very demanding (with numbers of grid points comparable to a regular 0.25° grid), the throughput is high at about 8 simulated years per day because of high scalability. In addition, we are about to finish the development of a finite volume version of the ocean model code (FESOM 2). It is already faster than the original FESOM version by a factor of two to three, which will further enlarge the set of computationally feasible applications

Ocean Modeling on a Mesh With Resolution Following the Local Rossby Radius

We discuss the performance of the Finite Element Ocean Model (FESOM) on locally eddy-resolving global unstructured meshes. In particular, the utility of the mesh design approach whereby mesh horizontal resolution is varied as half the Rossby radius in most of the model domain is explored. Model simulations on such a mesh (FESOM-XR) are compared with FESOM simulations on a smaller-size mesh, where refinement depends only on the pattern of observed variability (FESOM-HR). We also compare FESOM results to a simulation of the ocean model of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPIOM) on a tripolar regular grid with refinement toward the poles, which uses a number of degrees of freedom similar to FESOM-XR. The mesh design strategy, which relies on the Rossby radius and/or the observed variability pattern, tends to coarsen the resolution in tropical and partly subtropical latitudes compared to the regular MPIOM grid. Excessive variations of mesh resolution are found to affect the performance in other nearby areas, presumably through dissipation that increases if resolution is coarsened. The largest improvement shown by FESOM-XR is a reduction of the surface temperature bias in the so-called North-West corner of the North Atlantic Ocean where horizontal resolution was increased dramatically. However, other biases in FESOM-XR remain largely unchanged compared to FESOM-HR. We conclude that resolving the Rossby radius alone (with two points per Rossby radius) is insufficient, and that careful use of a priori information on eddy dynamics is required to exploit the full potential of ocean models on unstructured meshes