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ENSO teleconnections to US winter precipitation extremes in DOE’s E3SM’s Multiscale Modeling Framework Configuration

Presentation Date
Monday, January 29, 2024 at 1:45pm - Monday, January 29, 2024 at 2:00pm
Location
Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor - Holiday 6
Authors

Author

Abstract

Extracting regional precipitation predictability on sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales from low frequency variability phenomena, like El Nino Southern Oscillation, remains a challenge. SST anomalies associated with ENSO events govern deep convective activity over the Tropical Pacific Ocean. Rossby waves that emanate from the resulting diabatic heating of the tropical atmosphere then regulate remote tele-connections. Sub-grid scale deep convection parametrizations, however, are one of the largest sources of error in the current generation of earth system models and thus also lead to erroneous simulations of ENSO teleconnections. Here, we evaluate the simulation of ENSO teleconnections to US winter precipitation extremes by US Department of Energy’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model’s Multi-scale Modeling Framework (E3SM-MMF) model configuration. E3SM-MMF embeds a cloud resolving model in each model grid point to improve the simulation of deep convection. We find that E3SM-MMF credibly simulates the observed ENSO teleconnections to US winter precipitation mean and extremes over Southeast and Southwest US. It is also found to improve upon the low-resolution configuration of E3SM. The enhancements are largely due to the improved simulation of ENSO-dependent storm track activity and moisture fluxes into the regions in E3SM-MMF.

Funding Program Area(s)