Influence of stochastic physics on the frequency of occurrence of North Pacific weather regimes in the ECMWF model.

Title
Influence of stochastic physics on the frequency of occurrence of North Pacific weather regimes in the ECMWF model.
Technical memorandum
Date Published
07/2005
Secondary Title
ECMWF Technical Memoranda
Number
473
Author
T. Jung
T.N. Palmer
G.J. Shutts
Publisher
ECMWF
Abstract One common problem of many atmospheric circulation models is that the strength of the mean westerly winds is overestimated in the mid-latitude North Pacific. This westerly wind bias is also a prominent feature in a recent version of the ECMWF model. Here we use the ECMWF model in order to investigate whether the use of stochastic physics helps reducing this error using the concept of weather regimes. The focus is on the winter season when the atmospheric regime structure is most pronounced. It is shown that the operational version of the ECMWF stochastic physics has little impact on the frequency of occurrence of North Pacific weather regimes. A recently developed scheme, however, which is based on combining a cellular automaton with a stochastic backscatter component, leads to substantial improvements in the simulation of the frequency of occurrence of North Pacific weather regimes.
URL https://www.ecmwf.int/en/elibrary/75103-influence-stochastic-physics-frequency-occurrence-north-pacific-weather-regimes
DOI 10.21957/pwt56tda