Weather & Atmospheric Dynamics

Improve our understanding of atmospheric circulations ranging in scale from hurricanes to extratropical storms and the general circulation, with an emphasis on extreme weather events and the interplay between weather phenomena and climate variability and change, using comprehensive high resolution atmospheric modeling and idealized dynamical studies.

Hurricane Modeling

Investigate hurricane sensitivity to climate change using a variety of tools, including global models, regional models, and the GFDL hurricane forecast system. Continue to improve the GFDL hurricane forecast system and its operational implementations.

• Operational track and intensity forecasting
• Real-time ensemble hurricane track and intensity forecast guidance
  
• Next-generation track and intensity forecasting
  
• Global models of tropical cyclone statistics and sensitivity to climate change
• Regional model of the Atlantic hurricane season and its sensitivity to climate change
• Seasonal forecasts of Atlantic hurricanes
  

High Resolution Global Atmospheric Modeling

Develop high resolution atmospheric models for improved simulations of the atmospheric climate, and for studies of regional climate change and of extreme weather.

• Atmospheric "dynamical cores" -- algorithms for representing the fluid dynamical component of atmospheric models
• NARCCAP - North American Regional Climate Change and Assessment Program
• Time-slice simulations for IPCC AR5 with high resolution global models
• Ultra-high resolution cloud resolving, non-hydrostatic global models
• The data-driven simulation of the peak 2008 hurricane season (20080825-20081001) using the C720 (12.5 km) version of the HiRAM.

General Circulation Dynamics

Study a variety of idealized general circulation models to develop our understanding of the atmospheric climate and help optimize GFDL's atmospheric model development efforts, with an emphasis on the interplay between the atmospheric hydrological cycle and the general circulation.

• Tropical atmospheric dynamics
• Extratropical atmospheric dynamics
  
• Analyses of climate sensitivity and feedbacks
• Publicly available idealized models

Global Modeling of Tropical Cyclone Activity

As part of the development of a new generation of atmospheric models with finer spatial resolution, we have been examining a variety of issues related to tropical cyclone statistics, including inter-annual variability, seasonal predictability, and the effects of global warming. The cornerstone of this research is an atmospheric model with approximately 50km horizontal resolution that provides an impressive simulation of the climatology of tropical cyclones, including their geographical distribution and seasonal cycle in different ocean basins. It is intriguing that a model of this resolution can do so well in this regard, and it is this success that has allowed us to address a number of important issues related to tropical cyclones. Click here to read more and view the animation.