U.S. CLIVAR Science

Climate Prediction

• IRI - International Research Institute for Climate Prediction
• NCEP - National Centers for Environmental Prediction
  • Climate Prediction Center (CPC)
  • NOAA Climate Test Bed (CTB)
  • Environmental Modeling Center (EMC)
• COLA - Center for Ocean Land Atmosphere Studies
• NSIPP - NASA Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction Project

Current Climate Indices/Updates

Climate Forecast Links

• IRI Climate Forecast Products
• NOAA CPC Monthly Temperature and Precipitation Outlooks
• NOAA CPC Seasonal Temperature and Precipitation Outlooks
• NOAA CPC ENSO Diagnostic Discussion
• CFS Forecast of Seasonal Climate Anomalies
• NOAA's U.S. Drought Assessment
• U.S. Drought Monitor Forecasts
• ECMWF Forecasts
• NASA GMAO Experimental Predictions

Model Evaluation and Improvement

Drought in Coupled Models Project (DRICOMP) - Drought in Coupled Models Project (DRICOMP), focuses on evaluation of a variety of existing model products to address issues such as the roles of the oceans and the seasonal cycle in drought, the impacts of drought on water availability, and distinctions between drought and drying.The objective of DRICOMP is to increase community-wide diagnostic research into the physical mechanisms of drought and to evaluate its simulation in current models. DRICOMP will lead to more robust evaluations of model projections of drought risk and severity, and thus to a better quantification of the uncertainty in such projections.

• DRICOMP AO
• DRICOMP proposals awarded

Climate Model Evaluation Project (CMEP) - The objective is to increase community-wide diagnostic research into the quality of model simulations, leading to more robust evaluations of model predictions and a better quantification of uncertainty in projections of future climate. The results of this research will be used for the subsequent evaluations of the quality of U.S. model global and regional climate projections of the 21st century and beyond in the context of an international multi-model dataset.

• CMEP Announcement of Opportunity
• CMEP proposals awarded
• CMEP publications
• International Workshop on Analyses of Climate Model Simulations for the IPCC AR4.

Climate Process Teams (CPTs)

• CPT Announcement (Feb 27, 2003) - Following the announcement, three separate CPTS were established by U.S. CLIVAR. These CPTs are small groups of observationalists, theorecticians, small-scale modelers, and scientists at modeling centers working closely together to improve parameterizations of a particular process in one or more IPCC-class models.
  • CPT-1: Low-Latitude Cloud Feedbacks on Climate Sensitivity
  • CPT-2: Ocean Eddy Mixed-Layer Interactions
  • CPT-3: Gravity Current Entrainment

Studies of Climate Relevant Processes

VOCALS - VAMOS Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study

EPIC - Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate Processes in the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere System

NAME - North American Monsoon Experiment is a joint CLIVAR-GEWEX process study and the North American implementation of the WCRP/CLIVAR/VAMOS Program. Its overall aim is to determine the sources and limits of predictability of warm season precipiation over North America, with emphasis on times scales ranging from seasonal to interannual.

CLIMODE - CLIvar MOde Water Dynamic Experiment - CLIMODE is a project to study the dynamics of 'Eighteen Degree Water'
( EDW ), the subtropical mode water of the North Atlantic. This project stems from two years of CLIVAR planning (with advice and support of both the Atlantic and US CLIVAR committees) to develop an experiment to attack a key process that is poorly understood and poorly represented in ocean climate models - i.e. the treatment of convection, eddy and mixing processes in setting properties of subtropical mode waters, the associated air-sea interaction, and the exchange of fluid between the mixed layer and the upper ocean. CLIMODE will work closely with the Climate Process Team (CPT) Emilie (see below).

KESS - Kuroshio Extension Sytem Study is a collaborative effort between the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Hawaii. The purpose of KESS is to understand the processes that govern the variability of and the interaction between the Kuroshio Extension and its recirculation gyre. Additional information can be found at the University of Rhode Island KESS page.

AMMA - African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses is a project designed to improve the forecasting of the African monsoon from weather to climatic scales.

DIMES - Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean is an experiment designed to measure the diapycnal diffusivity and mesoscale isopycnal diffusivity at several levels and in several environments in the Antarctic Circumpoloar Current (ACC). The underlying motivation of DIMES is to understand the meridional overturning circulation of the global ocean.

SALLJ - South American Low Level Jet Experiment is the first of a series of experiments that will attempt, during a rigorous data gathering field phase, to monitor, quantify, and analyze low-level circulations that modulate regional rainfall.

Major Global Ocean Data Analysis / Reanalysis Activities

In addition, the Naval Research Laboratory has an assimilation project for realtime ocean nowcasting/forecasting.

Climate Monitoring

• Meridional Overturning Circulation - There is a northward transport of heat throughout the Atlantic Ocean. The heat transport is a balance of the northward flux of a warm Gulf Stream, and a southward flux of cooler thermocline and cold North Atlantic Deep Water that is known as the meridional overturning circulation (MOC).

• U.S. Repeat Hydrography program - is currently in its implementation phase. The jointly designed observational program was designed to meet the needs of the CLIVAR and Carbon research programs, particularly for studies addressing the carbon system, heat and freshwater storage and flux, deep and shallow water mass and ventilation, as well as calibrating autonomous sensors and calibrating climate models.

This page maintained by the U.S. CLIVAR Project Office
This page last updated September 11, 2007
Please E-mail questions or comments to usco@usclivar.org