Conventional climate models continue to struggle to properly represent large-scale tropical moist convective systems including convectively coupled equatorial waves) and the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO). Because these disturbances have global impacts on weather and climate through atmospheric and oceanic teleconnections, this casts a shadow of doubt on the reliability of climate prediction on different timescales ranging from intraseasonal to seasonal and longer.
This collaborative project has the goals of improving understanding of the dynamics of these disturbances, and enhancing the ability to simulate them by using a new Lagrangian atmospheric model that simulates atmospheric circulations by predicting motions of individual air parcels. Educational impacts of this project will include further development of climate modeling capabilities at Yale and Susquehanna Universities, which will benefit both undergraduate and graduate students by introducing them to cutting edge techniques in atmospheric modeling and convective parametrization. In addition there is a plan to educate the general public about the fundamentals of weather and climate modeling. Thus the project has substantial broader impacts.
