HR: 09:00h
AN: H51F-03    [Abstracts]
TI: The Role of Convection in the North American Monsoon
AU: * Baidya Roy, S
EM: sbroy@duke.edu
AF: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Duke University, Box 90287 Hudson Hall, Durham, NC 27708 United States
AU: Avissar, R
EM: avissar@duke.edu
AF: Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Duke University, Box 90287 Hudson Hall, Durham, NC 27708 United States
AB: The North American Monsoon (NAM) is a very important part of the hydrologic cycle of the southwestern US and northwest Mexico. Improving the understanding and prediction of the NAM system is crucial for efficient management of regional water resources. We use the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) with different configurations to simulate the evolution of the NAM and explore the role played by convection in that process. We employ a high spatial resolution and ADAP, a new vertical coordinate system for a better representation of the complex terrain associated with the Sierra Madre mountains and the convective clouds and precipitation they spawn. ADAP is a form of shaved grid cell method that uses the finite volume instead of the finite difference scheme used in the traditional terrain-following coordinate systems in other models. The results are validated against satellite and raingauge data. We find that properly resolving convection, instead of relying on parameterizations, is the key to improving the simulation of the NAM system.
DE: 1854 Precipitation (3354)
DE: 3314 Convective processes
DE: 3322 Land/atmosphere interactions
DE: 3329 Mesoscale meteorology
DE: 3337 Numerical modeling and data assimilation
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly