CAPT: The Cloud-Associated Parameterizations Testbed
CAPT is a joint project of the Atmospheric System Research (ASR) and the Regional and Global Climate Modeling (RGCM) Programs of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science/Biological and Energy Research (BER).  (Prior to February 2010, CAPT was known as the CCPP-ARM Parameterization Testbed.) We are using analyses of global weather from numerical weather prediction (NWP) centers,  in conjunction with field observations such as those provided by Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility, to evaluate parameterizations of sub-gridscale processes in global climate models.  Simply stated, we run realistically initialized climate models in forecast mode to determine their initial drift from the NWP analyse and/or from the available field data, thereby gaining insights on model parameterization deficiencies.