Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere

About: Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Snow & Data assimilation. The organization has 332 authors who have published 997 publications receiving 38835 citations. The organization is also known as: CIRA.

A Simple Data Assimilation System for Complex Snow Distributions (SnowAssim)

Abstract: A methodology for assimilating ground-based and remotely sensed snow data within a snow-evolution modeling system (SnowModel) is presented. The data assimilation scheme (SnowAssim) is consistent with optimal interpolation approaches in which the differences between the observed and modeled snow values are used to constrain modeled outputs. The calculated corrections are applied retroactively to create improved fields prior to the assimilated observations. Thus, one of the values of this scheme is the improved simulation of snow-related distributions throughout the entire snow season, even when observations are only available late in the accumulation and/or ablation periods. Because of this, the technique is particularly applicable to reanalysis applications. The methodology includes the ability to stratify the assimilation into regions where either the observations and/or model has unique error properties, such as the differences between forested and nonforested snow environments. The methodologies are introduced using synthetic data and a simple simulation domain. In addition, the model is applied over NASA’s Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX), Rabbit Ears Pass, Colorado, observation domain. Simulations using the data assimilation scheme were found to improve the modeled snow water equivalent (SWE) distributions, and simulated SWE displayed considerably more realistic spatial heterogeneity than that provided by the observations alone.

Turbulence and Gravity Waves within an Upper-Level Front

Abstract: High-resolution dropwindsonde and in-flight measurements collected by a research aircraft during the Severe Clear-Air Turbulence Colliding with Aircraft Traffic (SCATCAT) experiment and simulations from numerical models are analyzed for a clear-air turbulence event associated with an intense upper-level jet/frontal system. Spectral, wavelet, and structure function analyses performed with the 25-Hz in situ data are used to investigate the relationship between gravity waves and turbulence. Mesoscale dynamics are analyzed with the 20-km hydrostatic Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) model and a nested 1-km simulation with the nonhydrostatic Clark–Hall (CH) cloud-scale model. Turbulence occurred in association with a wide spectrum of upward propagating gravity waves above the jet core. Inertia–gravity waves were generated within a region of unbalanced frontogenesis in the vicinity of a complex tropopause fold. Turbulent kinetic energy fields forecast by the RUC and CH models displayed a strongly banded appeara...

Daily Hurricane Variability Inferred from GOES Infrared Imagery

Abstract: Using the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service–Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (NESDIS–CIRA) tropical cyclone infrared (IR) imagery archive, combined with best track storm center fix information, a coherent depiction of the temporal and azimuthally averaged spatial structure of hurricane cloudiness is demonstrated. The diurnal oscillation of areal extent of the hurricane cirrus canopy, as documented in a number of previous studies, is clearly identified but often found to vanish near the convective region of the hurricane eyewall. While a significant diurnal oscillation is generally absent near the storm center, a powerful and highly significant semidiurnal oscillation is sometimes revealed in that region. This result intimates that convection near the center of tropical storms and hurricanes may not be diurnally forced, but might, at times, be semidiurnally forced. A highly significant semidiurnal oscillation is also often found in the near environ...

Surface energy balance and melt thresholds over 11 years at Taylor Glacier, Antarctica

Abstract: 11 years. Ablation (� 18 cm a � 1 ) was dominated by sublimation with very few occurrences of melt (42 days during 11 years). Results also indicated that above freezing air temperatures did not necessarily result in melt and, in turn, melt occurred during subfreezing air temperatures under some conditions. For air temperatures near freezing, low wind speed was critically important for melt initiation. According to the model, subsurface melt, away from rocks and sediment in the ice, occurred three times more frequently than surface melt; occurs no deeper than 50 cm below the glacier surface; and was small, never exceeding 8% by mass. The magnitude of subsurface melting and the energy balance indicate that Taylor Glacier ice is intermediate in optical properties between snow and blue ice.