2. Austral-Asian Summer Monsoon Weather Systems
and Their Intra-Seasonal and Interannual Variability:
A NASA Modeling and Satellite Data Application
(PIs: David Straus and J. Shukla)
Science Questions:
What are the three-dimensional dynamical characteristics of the disturbances associated with the Austral-Asian summer monsoons (their formation, maintenance, propagation and decay)?
What are the interacting roles of baroclinic/barotropic dynamics, orographic uplift, air-sea interaction, and latent heating feedbacks?
What are the dynamics of the monsoon active/break cycles?
Unique NASA resources:
5-day forecasts of very high resolution 0.25º x 0.25º global models for recent summer seasons (GEOS4, GEOS5) initialized from observed data.
Assimilation of new satellite data into global models
Verification of forecasts with TRMM and in situ observations

3. Work Plan:
Analyze daily to interannual rainfall variability, and individual disturbance tracks from GEOS4 forecasts - development of tracking algorithms on surface pressure, vorticity and isentropic potential vorticity
Application to GEOS5 5-day forecasts for summer of 2006
Model runs with Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model within GEOS5 analyses and forecasts for intense monsoon disturbances, and for transitions in the break / active cycle