CW3E Participates in 2nd ARTMIP Workshop

April 26, 2018

The 2nd Atmospheric River Tracking Method Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP) Workshop was recently held in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The ARTMIP, started in 2017, is an effort to quantify the uncertainty in AR climatology, precipitation, and related impacts that arise because of different AR tracking methods, and how these AR-related metrics may change in the future. It also aims to provide guidance regarding the advantages and disadvantages of these different AR tracking methods, and which of these methods are best suited to answer certain scientific questions. Several members of CW3E are actively participating in ARTMIP and attended the workshop, including, Director Marty Ralph, Brian Kawzenuk, Aneesh Subramanian, Tamara Shulgina, and Anna Wilson.

The purpose and goals of the workshop were:

  • Discuss Tier 1 catalogues in context of science questions defined in the 1st ARTMIP workshop
  • Discuss Tier 1 analysis for the science overview paper
  • Discuss metrics, and adjust if necessary, and begin to formulate guidance on algorithmic choices based on Tier 1 results
  • Discuss and organize Tier 2 catalogue details and future studies

A main outcome from the workshop included the discussion of Tier 1 analysis and two publications from Tier 1. The first, an outline on the experimental design led by Christine Shields (NCAR), is currently under review with GMD. The second, led by Jon Rutz (NOAA), will provide overviews of the results from Tier 1. Another main outcome from the workshop was the discussion and planning of three publications from Tier 2 datasets: high-resolution climate change model runs, CMIP5 climate runs, and historical reanalyses comparison to the MERRA-2. At least eight other additional publications were discussed as well, including topics such as extreme precipitation, ENSO, ARs in polar regions, measures of internal variability, data resolution sensitivity, and more. Next steps for the ARTMIP include completion of the Tier 1 overview paper and beginning of Tier 2 catalog generation and analyses.

Workshop Participants (left to right): Jon Rutz (NOAA), Roger Pierce (NOAA), Ruby Leung (PNNL), Phu Nguyen (UC Irvine), Irina Gorodetskaya (Univ. Aveiro), Helen Griffith (Univ. Reading), Christine Shields (NCAR), Brian Kawzenuk (UCSD), Alexandre Ramos (Univ. Lisbon), Marty Ralph (UCSD), Juan Lora (UCLA), Gary Geernaert (DOE), Ashley Payne (Univ. Michigan), Elizabeth McClenny (UC Davis), Travis O’Brien (LBNL), Naomi Goldenson (UCLA), Daniel Walton (UCLA), Vitaliy Kurlin (LBNL), Aneesh Subramanian (UCSD), Tamara Shulgina (UCSD), Yang Zhou (Stony Brook Univ.), Bin Guan (UCLA), Renu Joesph (DOE), Michael Wehner (LBNL), Maximilliano Viale (Univ. Chile), Paul Ullrich (UC Davis; not pictured), Swen Brands (Meteogalicia; not pictured), Anna Wilson (UCSD; not pictured).

For more information on ARTMIP, visit the ARTMIP website.