Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics www.atmos-chem-phys.net 1680-7316 1680-7324 10 10 2010 10.5194/acp-10-4757-2010 http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/4757/2010/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/4757/2010/acp-10-4757-2010.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/4757/2010/acp-10-4757-2010.pdf 4757 4774 2010-05-26 The PreVOCA experiment: modeling the lower troposphere in the Southeast Pacific M. C. Wyant mwyant@atmos.washington.edu R. Wood C. S. Bretherton C. R. Mechoso J. Bacmeister M. A. Balmaseda B. Barrett F. Codron P. Earnshaw J. Fast C. Hannay J. W. Kaiser H. Kitagawa S. A. Klein M. Köhler J. Manganello H.-L. Pan F. Sun S. Wang Y. Wang Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA Global Modeling and Assimiliation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA Research Department, European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, UK Department of Geophysics, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique, Paris, France Met Office, Exeter, Devon, UK Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA Climate and Global Dynamics Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA Meteorological College, Japan Meteorological Agency, Tokyo, Japan Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, Calverton, MD, USA Environmental Modeling Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Camp Springs, Maryland, USA Marine Meteorology Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, CA, USA International Pacific Research Center, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA The Preliminary VOCALS Model Assessment (PreVOCA) aims to assess contemporary atmospheric modeling of the subtropical South East Pacific, with a particular focus on the clouds and the marine boundary layer (MBL). Models results from fourteen modeling centers were collected including operational forecast models, regional models, and global climate models for the month of October 2006. Forecast models and global climate models produced daily forecasts, while most regional models were run continuously during the study period, initialized and forced at the boundaries with global model analyses. Results are compared in the region from 40° S to the equator and from 110° W to 70° W, corresponding to the Pacific coast of South America. Mean-monthly model surface winds agree well with QuikSCAT observed winds and models agree fairly well on mean weak large-scale subsidence in the region next to the coast. However they have greatly differing geographic patterns of mean cloud fraction with only a few models agreeing well with MODIS observations. Most models also underestimate the MBL depth by several hundred meters in the eastern part of the study region. 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