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Michele M. Rienecker

Other affiliations: Naval Postgraduate School
Bio: Michele M. Rienecker is an academic researcher from Goddard Space Flight Center. The author has contributed to research in topics: Data assimilation & Sea surface temperature. The author has an hindex of 32, co-authored 76 publications receiving 10934 citations. Previous affiliations of Michele M. Rienecker include Naval Postgraduate School.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) was undertaken by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office with two primary objectives: to place observations from NASA's Earth Observing System satellites into a climate context and to improve upon the hydrologic cycle represented in earlier generations of reanalyses as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) was undertaken by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office with two primary objectives: to place observations from NASA’s Earth Observing System satellites into a climate context and to improve upon the hydrologic cycle represented in earlier generations of reanalyses. Focusing on the satellite era, from 1979 to the present, MERRA has achieved its goals with significant improvements in precipitation and water vapor climatology. Here, a brief overview of the system and some aspects of its performance, including quality assessment diagnostics from innovation and residual statistics, is given.By comparing MERRA with other updated reanalyses [the interim version of the next ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) and the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR)], advances made in this new generation of reanalyses, as well as remaining deficiencies, are identified. Although there is little difference between the new reanalyses i...

4,572 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An overview of the MERRA-2 system and various performance metrics is provided, including the assimilation of aerosol observations, several improvements to the representation of the stratosphere including ozone, and improved representations of cryospheric processes.
Abstract: The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2), is the latest atmospheric reanalysis of the modern satellite era produced by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). MERRA-2 assimilates observation types not available to its predecessor, MERRA, and includes updates to the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model and analysis scheme so as to provide a viable ongoing climate analysis beyond MERRA’s terminus. While addressing known limitations of MERRA, MERRA-2 is also intended to be a development milestone for a future integrated Earth system analysis (IESA) currently under development at GMAO. This paper provides an overview of the MERRA-2 system and various performance metrics. Among the advances in MERRA-2 relevant to IESA are the assimilation of aerosol observations, several improvements to the representation of the stratosphere including ozone, and improved representations of cryospheric processes. Other improvements in the quality of M...

4,524 citations

01 Dec 2008
TL;DR: The GEOS-5 global atmospheric model and data assimilation system (DAS) as discussed by the authors has been developed by NASA for the Modem Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA).
Abstract: This report documents the GEOS-5 global atmospheric model and data assimilation system (DAS), including the versions 5.0.1, 5.1.0, and 5.2.0, which have been implemented in products distributed for use by various NASA instrument team algorithms and ultimately for the Modem Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA). The DAS is the integration of the GEOS-5 atmospheric model with the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) Analysis, a joint analysis system developed by the NOAA/National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the NASA/Global Modeling and Assimilation Office. The primary performance drivers for the GEOS DAS are temperature and moisture fields suitable for the EOS instrument teams, wind fields for the transport studies of the stratospheric and tropospheric chemistry communities, and climate-quality analyses to support studies of the hydrological cycle through MERRA. The GEOS-5 atmospheric model has been approved for open source release and is available from: http://opensource.gsfc.nasa.gov/projects/GEOS-5/GEOS-5.php.

844 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The recent U.S. National Academies report, Assessment of Intraseasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction and Predictability, was unequivocal in recommending the need for the development of a North American Multimodel Ensemble (NMME) operational predictive capability.
Abstract: The recent U.S. National Academies report, Assessment of Intraseasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction and Predictability, was unequivocal in recommending the need for the development of a North American Multimodel Ensemble (NMME) operational predictive capability. Indeed, this effort is required to meet the specific tailored regional prediction and decision support needs of a large community of climate information users. The multimodel ensemble approach has proven extremely effective at quantifying prediction uncertainty due to uncertainty in model formulation and has proven to produce better prediction quality (on average) than any single model ensemble. This multimodel approach is the basis for several international collaborative prediction research efforts and an operational European system, and there are numerous examples of how this multimodel ensemble approach yields superior forecasts compared to any single model. Based on two NOAA Climate Test bed (CTB) NMME workshops (18 February and 8 April 2...

754 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper provided an update on research in the relatively new and fast-moving field of decadal climate prediction, and addressed the use of Decadal climate predictions not only for potential users of such information but also for improving our understanding of processes in the climate system.
Abstract: This paper provides an update on research in the relatively new and fast-moving field of decadal climate prediction, and addresses the use of decadal climate predictions not only for potential users of such information but also for improving our understanding of processes in the climate system. External forcing influences the predictions throughout, but their contributions to predictive skill become dominant after most of the improved skill from initialization with observations vanishes after about 6–9 years. Recent multimodel results suggest that there is relatively more decadal predictive skill in the North Atlantic, western Pacific, and Indian Oceans than in other regions of the world oceans. Aspects of decadal variability of SSTs, like the mid-1970s shift in the Pacific, the mid-1990s shift in the northern North Atlantic and western Pacific, and the early-2000s hiatus, are better represented in initialized hindcasts compared to uninitialized simulations. There is evidence of higher skill in initialize...

470 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: ERA-Interim as discussed by the authors is the latest global atmospheric reanalysis produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which will extend back to the early part of the twentieth century.
Abstract: ERA-Interim is the latest global atmospheric reanalysis produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The ERA-Interim project was conducted in part to prepare for a new atmospheric reanalysis to replace ERA-40, which will extend back to the early part of the twentieth century. This article describes the forecast model, data assimilation method, and input datasets used to produce ERA-Interim, and discusses the performance of the system. Special emphasis is placed on various difficulties encountered in the production of ERA-40, including the representation of the hydrological cycle, the quality of the stratospheric circulation, and the consistency in time of the reanalysed fields. We provide evidence for substantial improvements in each of these aspects. We also identify areas where further work is needed and describe opportunities and objectives for future reanalysis projects at ECMWF. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society

22,055 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) was undertaken by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office with two primary objectives: to place observations from NASA's Earth Observing System satellites into a climate context and to improve upon the hydrologic cycle represented in earlier generations of reanalyses as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) was undertaken by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office with two primary objectives: to place observations from NASA’s Earth Observing System satellites into a climate context and to improve upon the hydrologic cycle represented in earlier generations of reanalyses. Focusing on the satellite era, from 1979 to the present, MERRA has achieved its goals with significant improvements in precipitation and water vapor climatology. Here, a brief overview of the system and some aspects of its performance, including quality assessment diagnostics from innovation and residual statistics, is given.By comparing MERRA with other updated reanalyses [the interim version of the next ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) and the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR)], advances made in this new generation of reanalyses, as well as remaining deficiencies, are identified. Although there is little difference between the new reanalyses i...

4,572 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An overview of the MERRA-2 system and various performance metrics is provided, including the assimilation of aerosol observations, several improvements to the representation of the stratosphere including ozone, and improved representations of cryospheric processes.
Abstract: The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2), is the latest atmospheric reanalysis of the modern satellite era produced by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). MERRA-2 assimilates observation types not available to its predecessor, MERRA, and includes updates to the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model and analysis scheme so as to provide a viable ongoing climate analysis beyond MERRA’s terminus. While addressing known limitations of MERRA, MERRA-2 is also intended to be a development milestone for a future integrated Earth system analysis (IESA) currently under development at GMAO. This paper provides an overview of the MERRA-2 system and various performance metrics. Among the advances in MERRA-2 relevant to IESA are the assimilation of aerosol observations, several improvements to the representation of the stratosphere including ozone, and improved representations of cryospheric processes. Other improvements in the quality of M...

4,524 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
23 Sep 1999-Nature
TL;DR: An analysis of observational data over the past 40 years shows a dipole mode in the Indian Ocean: a pattern of internal variability with anomalously low sea surface temperatures off Sumatra and high seasurface temperatures in the western Indian Ocean, with accompanying wind and precipitation anomalies.
Abstract: For the tropical Pacific and Atlantic oceans, internal modes of variability that lead to climatic oscillations have been recognized1,2, but in the Indian Ocean region a similar ocean–atmosphere interaction causing interannual climate variability has not yet been found3. Here we report an analysis of observational data over the past 40 years, showing a dipole mode in the Indian Ocean: a pattern of internal variability with anomalously low sea surface temperatures off Sumatra and high sea surface temperatures in the western Indian Ocean, with accompanying wind and precipitation anomalies. The spatio-temporal links between sea surface temperatures and winds reveal a strong coupling through the precipitation field and ocean dynamics. This air–sea interaction process is unique and inherent in the Indian Ocean, and is shown to be independent of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation. The discovery of this dipole mode that accounts for about 12% of the sea surface temperature variability in the Indian Ocean—and, in its active years, also causes severe rainfall in eastern Africa and droughts in Indonesia—brightens the prospects for a long-term forecast of rainfall anomalies in the affected countries.

4,385 citations