2012 NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

09.07.2012 ICR4 Conference Report Available

The Report of the 4th International Conference on Reanalyses is available from the World Climate Research Programme at http://www.wcrp-climate.org/documents/ICR4_Report.pdf

07.23.2012 GEOS-5 dust forecasts now part of WMO Warning System

The near real time GEOS-5 dust forecasts are now included in the WMO Dust and Sand Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System (WMO SDS-WAS).
Read More.

06.11.2012 Technical Memorandum on Atmospheric Reanalyses is now available

The NASA Technical Memorandum, Atmospheric Reanalyses—Recent Progress and Prospects for the Future. A Report from a Technical Workshop, April 2010 (TM—2012-104606-Vol 29) is now available.

In April 2010, developers representing each of the major reanalysis centers met at Goddard to discuss technical issues—system advances and lessons learned—associated with recent and ongoing atmospheric reanalyses and plans for the future. The meeting included overviews of each center's development efforts, a discussion of the issues in observations, models and data assimilation, and, finally, identification of priorities for future directions and potential areas of collaboration. This report summarizes the deliberations and recommendations from the meeting as well as some advances since the workshop.

05.17.2012 - 4th World Climate Research Programme International Conference on Reanalyses (ICR4)

The 4th World Climate Research Programme International Conference on Reanalyses (ICR4) was held May 7-11, 2012 in Silver Spring MD. Oral and poster presentations are available at the conference web site. See the conference program pages.

05.17.2012 Summary material for potential ROSES collaborations

A brief summary of GMAO core plans is provided as background material for potential collaborations through the NASA ROSES A.13 MAP call. Summary PDF.

04.26.2012 A new GEOS-5 Technical Memorandum is now available

The NASA Technical Memorandum, TM—2012-104606-Vol28, by Andrea Molod and colleagues in the GMAO's model development group describes the climatology of atmospheric simulations with the Fortuna version of the GEOS-5 AGCM. This is the current public release version of GEOS-5 and the version that was used for the GMAO's CMIP5 simulations. The document summarizes an extensive evaluation of the mean climate of many simulated fields with available observational estimates from satellites and reanalyses. It also describes the evolution from the version of GEOS-5 used for MERRA to the Fortuna version.

04.12.2012 GMAO adds two new products to its extensive suite of MERRA data

A new ocean surface diagnostics product and a new land surface diagnostics product have been added to the suite of MERRA data. The new ocean surface product is a 1-hourly, 2-dimensional ocean surface diagnostics product on a 2/3 by 1/2 degree grid. The product is also available as a monthly mean and seasonal product. A supplemental and improved set of hourly land surface hydrological fields ("MERRA-Land") on a 2/3 by 1/2 degree grid benefits from corrections to the precipitation forcing with a global gauge-based precipitation product and from revised parameter values in the rainfall interception model, changes that effectively correct for known limitations in the MERRA surface meteorological forcings.

See details about these new MERRA data products.