Recorded presentation1.2
The Hydrological Cycle of the MJO: A Pathway to Prediction at Subseasonal Time Scales
Duane Edward Waliser, JPL, Pasadena, CA; and B. Tian, E. Fetzer, W. T. Liu, and M. J. Schwartz
The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is the dominant form of intra-seasonal variability in the Tropics and it impacts a wide range of phenomena, such as El Nino/La Nina, Asian-Australian monsoons, mid-latitude weather, and tropical cyclones. Despite the prominent impacts of the MJO and its potential predictability with lead times on the order of weeks, our weather and climate models have a relatively poor representation of the MJO and our environmental predictions suffer from this shortcoming. To date, the large-scale MJO convection and circulation characteristics have been relatively well documented and in some cases understood. For the most part, these studies have focused on quantities such as upper and lower level winds, outgoing longwave radiation and precipitation, and surface heat budget processes. In recent years, a number of studies have also documented aspects of the MJO's vertical structure impacts on biology and composition. In this study, we focus on the hydrological cycle of the MJO. With the addition of a number of new satellite products in recent years, it is possible to more completely describe most aspects of the hydrological cycle of the MJO. We build on recent work with AIRS water vapor and MLS cloud ice profiles to document and discuss the variations in rainfall (TRMM, CMAP), surface evaporation (derived via SSM/I etc), vertical profiles of moisture (AIRS), column moisture convergence (QuikScat, SSM/I), and cloud liquid (SSM/I) and ice water (MLS). Recorded presentation
Session 1, Weather to Climate Scale Hydrological Forecasting
Monday, 21 January 2008, 9:00 AM-10:15 AM, 223
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