Analysis of moisture variability in the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts 15-year reanalysis over the tropical oceans

Richard P. Allan, A. Slingo, V. Ramaswamy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

We compare European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts 15-year reanalysis (ERA-15) moisture over the tropical oceans with satellite observations and the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) National Center for Atmospheric Research 40-year reanalysis. When systematic differences in moisture between the observational and reanalysis data sets are removed, the NCEP data show excellent agreement with the observations while the ERA-15 variability exhibits remarkable differences. By forcing agreement between ERA-15 column water vapor and the observations, where available, by scaling the entire moisture column accordingly, the height-dependent moisture variability remains unchanged for all but the 550-850 hPa layer, where the moisture variability reduces significantly. Thus the excess variation of column moisture in ERA-15 appears to originate in this layer. The moisture variability provided by ERA-15 is not deemed of sufficient quality for use in the validation of climate models.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)XI-XII
JournalJournal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres
Volume107
Issue number15
DOIs
StatePublished - 2002
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Geophysics
  • Forestry
  • Oceanography
  • Aquatic Science
  • Ecology
  • Water Science and Technology
  • Soil Science
  • Geochemistry and Petrology
  • Earth-Surface Processes
  • Atmospheric Science
  • Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)
  • Space and Planetary Science
  • Palaeontology

Keywords

  • Interannual variability
  • Reanalyses
  • Water vapor

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