AMIE (ARM MJO Investigation Experiment): Observations of the Madden-Julian Oscillation for Modeling Studies Science Plan

Abstract

Deep convection in the tropics plays an important role in driving global circulations and the transport of energy from the tropics to the mid-latitudes. Understanding the mechanisms that control tropical convection is a key to improving climate modeling simulations of the global energy balance. One of the dominant sources of tropical convective variability is the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), which has a period of approximately 30–60 days. There is no agreed-upon explanation for the underlying physics that maintain the MJO. Many climate models do not show well-defined MJO signals, and those that do have problems accurately simulating the amplitude, propagation speed, and/or seasonality of the MJO signal. Therefore, the MJO is a very important modeling target for the ARM modeling community geared specifically toward improving climate models. The ARM MJO Investigation Experiment (AMIE) period coincides with a large international MJO initiation field campaign called CINDY2011 (Cooperative Indian Ocean experiment on intraseasonal variability in the Year 2011) that will take place in and around the Indian Ocean from October 2011 to January 2012. AMIE, in conjunction with CINDY2011 efforts, will provide an unprecedented data set that will allow investigation of the evolution of convection within the framework of the MJO. AMIE observationsmore » will also complement the long-term MJO statistics produced using ARM Manus data and will allow testing of several of the current hypotheses related to the MJO phenomenon. Taking advantage of the expected deployment of a C-POL scanning precipitation radar and an ECOR surface flux tower at the ARM Manus site, we propose to increase the number of sonde launches to eight per day starting in about mid-October of the field experiment year, which is climatologically a period of generally suppressed conditions at Manus and just prior to the climatologically strongest MJO period. The field experiment will last until the end of the MJO season (typically March), affording the documentation of conditions before, during, and after the peak MJO season. The increased frequency of sonde launches throughout the experimental period will provide better diurnal understanding of the thermodynamic profiles, and thus a better representation within the variational analysis data set. Finally, a small surface radiation and ceilometer system will be deployed at the PNG Lombrum Naval Base about 6 km away from the ARM Manus site in order to provide some documentation of scale variability with respect to the representativeness of the ARM measurements.« less