The forthcoming Global Forecasting System GFSv17/GEFSv13 will be the first global forecast applications to become operational under the Unified Forecast System infrastructure. As such, it will be the first version of the GFS that is a fully coupled earth system model, including atmosphere, ocean, waves, land and sea ice component models. This development has been achieved through a collaborative effort involving NOAA and the broader numerical weather prediction community. The GFSv17/GEFSv13 includes innovations in physics, dynamics, coupling, and initial condition generation, which have been included in so-called “coupled prototypes” under the UFS infrastructure in a stepwise manner. In this presentation we will provide a concise overview of the incremental changes introduced to the cumulus convection parameterization schemes (both shallow and deep) during the prototype phases spanning from GFSv16 to the forthcoming GFSv17/GEFSv13, with a close eye on variability in the tropics, primarily driven by equatorial waves interacting with moist convective processes. We will present new tropical diagnostic capabilities, innovations in cumulus convection parameterization, and the role convection and ocean coupling plays in representing tropical variability in the UFS.
Dr. Lisa Bengtsson is a research scientist at the Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL) of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratories (ESRL) in Boulder Colorado. She leads the Model Development Team in the Model Development and Data Assimilation Division (MDAD). She joined NOAA ESRL PSL in 2017, most recently from the research branch of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) where she worked between 2006-2017. Dr Bengtsson’s research is focused on improving operational numerical weather forecasts across a range of scales through the development of physical stochastic and deterministic parameterizations, and is actively involved in the development of NOAA’s Unified Forecast System.
Dr. Maria Gehne is an Associate Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Environmental Research (CIRES) at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL). Before joining CIRES she worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Her research focuses on large-scale tropical convection, its predictability and representation in numerical weather forecasts and weather forecast error impacts in the US west. She received her PhD in 2012 from New York University in Atmosphere Ocean Science and Mathematics
