Theses and Dissertations

Advisor

Fosu, Boniface

Committee Member

Brown, Mike E.

Committee Member

Mercer, Andrew E.

Date of Degree

8-13-2024

Original embargo terms

Immediate Worldwide Access

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Geoscience (Professional Meteorology/Climatology)

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Geosciences

Abstract

Tropical SST biases in climate models significantly impact the projection of US precipitation. To show how these biases affect US precipitation simulation, I conducted nudging and flux adjustment experiments using the CESM1. In the nudging experiments, observed SSTs were prescribed over the three tropical oceans, and were compared to the control model to assess the effects of tropical SST biases. For the flux adjustment experiments, climatological SST and momentum fluxes were nudged towards the observed climatology, allowing us to characterize the effects of SST biases on the future projections of precipitation. Results indicate SST biases significantly affect the simulation of US precipitation, with the Pacific having the greatest impact. While the impacts of biases in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean are not as big, they significantly modulate the Pacific influences. Analysis of projections with flux corrected SSTs reveal tropical SST-induced precipitation biases in the US will worsen under climate change.

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