Papers in Meteorology and Geophysics

This paper summarizes the results of a 10-year integration of the MRI GCMs participating in the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP). Models are integrated with the lower boundary conditions of the observed SST and sea ice distributions from January 1979 to December 1988. Standard outputs with the 15-layer model are compared to observations and those with the 5-layer tropospheric model. It is shown that some of model deficiencies in the 5-layer model reported in previous papers are improved in the new 15-layer model climatology. Some of the differences in interannual variations in the mid-latitudes responding to the tropical SST forcing between the two models can be attributed to different model climatology.

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Two types of vortex disturbance over the Japan Sea in winter are well simulated in the case of 23-24 January 1990, with a high-resolution (6.0km grid at 36° N) one-way triple-nested hydrostatic numerical weather prediction model. They take different tracks with a very short interval. One is generated over the Continent of Asia and advances toward the east-northeast over the Japan Sea. Its vorticity center is found at a middle layer (650-700hPa) at first, and then shifts slowly down to a lower layer (∼950hPa). It has a multi-scale structure in which a meso-β-scale vortex is embedded in a meso-α-scale one. The other type of disturbance is originally generated over the northwestern part of the Japan Sea and advances toward the southeast along the topographically-induced horizontal shear line associated with the Japan-Sea Polar-airmass Convergence Zone (JPCZ) in the lower layer. The disturbance consists of several meso-β-scale vortices in line with their vorticity maxima in the lower layer. These characteristics of each disturbance are related to its own synoptic conditions, the key features of which are summarized in a scenario of evolution of the vortex disturbances.

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