RAPID - Round 1 - The atmospheric water vapour budget and its relevance to the thermohaline circulation Project


* Introduction

The aim of this research is to increase the understanding of the processes that control the distribution of evaporation and precipitation and their difference in the Atlantic region and in particular that the atmosphere gives a net export of water vapour from that basin. This export is vital to the existence and stability of the oceanic thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic. Contrast will be made with the Pacific Ocean region in which the atmosphere imports water. The research will be pursued through detailed analysis of the new ERA-40 data set, fundamental experimentation with an atmospheric GCM and analysis of data sets from climate change experiments.

Project Duration: 1 Nov 2003 - 31 Oct 2006

This project is funded by NERC - Grant Ref. NER/T/S/2002/00441 - through the RAPID Climate Change NERC directed mode programme.

* Availability of data

The project will be looking at ERA-40 reanalysis data, which BADC are already committed to serving. There will be an Atlas produced from the ERA-40 data set, available in November 2003 through the European Centre.

The HadAM3 model will be used in two modes

  1. Full climate.
  2. Simplified geometry (aqua planet).

It is unlikely that there will be much interest in the highly idealised aqua planet output for the rest of the RAPID community. However, some of the palaeo projects may be interested in storm tracks and moisture pattern effects and access to the output from the full climate model runs would be useful.
It is possible that a standard set of atmospheric diagnostics will be applied to other models such as HadCM3, HadGEM and HiGEM

* Access to data and information

Data and software supplied from this project to the BADC will be stored in the BADC RAPID archive.

Access to the archive is currently restricted to participants to this particular project. If you are a programme participant and would like to access this RAPID project data, then please apply for access* to the RAPID data.

You will be requested to abide by the RAPID Climate Change Data Policy.
Data management, availability and use are ruled by the RAPID Climate Change Programme Data Management Plan (PDF document).
Access to Hadley Centre model data held at the BADC is subject to the signature of the NERC-Met Office agreement.

* Note that to apply for access to this dataset, you should first register as a BADC user (anyone is allowed to register). If you are already a registered BADC user, skip this step. If you have forgotten your BADC user ID and/or password, please contact the BADC helpdesk at badc@rl.ac.uk. To register as a new BADC user, please follow the instructions online.

* Citation

* Who to contact

This RAPID project is led by Prof Sir Brian Hoskins of Imperial College London, Grantham Institute for Climate Change, with co-investigators at the University of Reading.

General queries about these pages or browsing the data should be directed to the BADC Support line.

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