Grand Idea 3:

Improved Models and Understanding of Air-Sea
Interaction Processes

Guiding Questions

  1. What are our gaps in process understanding limiting Earth System Model Forecasts?
  2. What are the gaps in observations that constrain the Earth System Model Forecasts?
  3. What parameterisations need improvement & scaling up? What is the strategy?
  4. How can OASIS help other groups working on these (e.g., SOLAS, CLIVAR, UN Decade Programmes…)?

Task Team Leadership

Theme Team Leads: Rhys Parfitt (Florida State University), Isabelle Giddy (ECOP, University of Gothenburg), Noel Brizuela (MPI), Masami Nonaka (JAMSTEC)

Program Office Support: info@airseaobs.org

Open membership — join here!

Terms of Reference

Grand Idea #3 seeks to better understand process studies and improve models and observing network design that feed into improved Earth Systems Model forecasts.

Meetings:

  • Zoom meetings once every month or two depending on schedule, more frequent communication via email/online chat.

Terms of Reference:

  • Outreach to modelling and forecasting communities to integrate their expertise and participation into the OASIS discussion.

  • Assess how well current observational networks address these needs and provide recommendations for future observational campaigns.

  • Share and integrate outcomes into other Theme Teams.

  • Work collaboratively with those communities, in synergy with other OASIS Theme teams, stakeholders and end-users, to better understand their observational needs with regards to air-sea interaction EOVs.

  • Development of a robust framework to facilitate process-based studies in the above communities.

Objectives

  • Increase engagement with modeling and forecasting communities.

    ○ Identify community consensus on the air-sea flux processes whose model representation most urgently need to be improved, particularly in the context of weather and S2S forecasting. A first step can simply be the design of a questionnaire to the community.

    ○ Ascertain where the main disconnect lies between model developers and observational scientists (e.g. is it a communication issue?)

    ○ Take advantage of UN Decade infrastructure to develop communication materials across this interdisciplinary community

  • Stimulate community process-based studies on air-sea interaction to better understand observational needs and requirements in modelling and forecasting communities.

    ○ Write a community article to summarize the findings in 1).

    ○ Propose in conjunction with the community article several community efforts to improve shortcomings in 1).

    ○ Lead at least one identified community effort.

  • 3) Contribute recommendations to future observational network design.

    ○ Through 1) and 2), synthesize recommendations for future observational network design.