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Improving the Scientific Foundation for Atmosphere-Land-Ocean Simulations Report of a Workshop (2005) / Chapter Skim
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3 The Framework for Developing Parameterizations
Pages 12-18

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From page 12...
... But parameterizations serve two 1Parameterization is defined by the American Meteorological Society (2000) as "The representation, in a dynamic model, of physical effects in terms of admittedly oversimplified parameters, rather than realistically requiring such effects to be consequences of the dynamics of the system." An alternative definition appears in the summary section of this report (see Chapter 5)
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From page 13...
... This is partly due to a prudent conservatism, but it does avoid the central issue of unexpected emergent behaviors. Because the large models can only have a small portion of their possible behaviors explored, an essential companion activity is discovering and fully understanding a suite of artfully conceived, elegant, minimally constructed models of canonical emergent behaviors germane to the atmosphere and ocean.
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From page 14...
... The assigned values of unmeasurable parameters are always chosen to optimize the realism of model results, but this may introduce compensating errors. Obviously, parameters that can be measured should be set to their measured values.
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From page 15...
... This different route is at least partially due to the fact that testing convective schemes in the field is very difficult compared to, say, testing surface-flux parameterizations. A methodology has been devised whereby rawinsonde arrays are used to measure horizontal and vertical advection, and surface-based and satellite-borne radiometers measure radiative fluxes.
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From page 16...
... COMMUNITY MODELS AS A FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPING AND TESTING PARAMETERIZATIONS Complex dynamical-system computational models are essential tools for the science of weather analysis and forecasting, small-scale geophysical fluid dynamics, climate, oceanic circulation, and biogeochemical cycling in Earth's system. They have come to have such com
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From page 17...
... Moreover, there are logistical and infrastructure issues that serve as a barrier to outsiders, including the technical difficulty of interfacing new code with a complex model that has complex data structures, testing the code, and then debugging it. Because it usually is faster and more effective to interact with the core model staff in person, an extended visit to the host institution may be required.
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From page 18...
... 18 ATMOSPHERE-LAND-OCEAN SIMULATIONS components of the CCSM (e.g., sea ice, land-surface processes, biogeochemistry) have undergone much more rapid recent development.
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Key Terms

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  • emergent behaviors
  • community model
  • model results
  • unexpected emergent

  • direct numerical
  • parameter values
  • rigorous tests
  • explicitly simulated
  • convective schemes

  • model development
  • incorrect parameter
  • component processes
  • field programs
  • simulation models

  • established community
  • complex model
  • technical difficulty
  • largescale simulations
  • weather analysis

  • methodology include
  • modeling scientists
  • relevant emergent
  • evolve slowly
  • based strictly

  • life cycles
  • dimensional reasoning
  • strongly collaborative
  • radiative fluxes
  • called direct


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