Evaluation of Polar MM5 Simulations of Antarctic Atmospheric Circulation

Abstract Evaluation of a complete annual cycle of nonhydrostatic mesoscale model simulations of the Antarctic atmospheric circulation is presented. The year-long time series are compiled from a series of overlapping short-duration (72 h) simulations of the atmospheric state with the first 24 h being discarded for spinup reasons, and the 24–72-h periods used for model evaluation. The simulations are generated with the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model (MM5), which is modified for polar applications, and is referred to as the Polar MM5. With a horizontal resolution of 60 km, the Polar MM5 has been run for the period of January 1993–December 1993, creating short-term simulations from initial and boundary conditions provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) operational analyses. The model output is compared with observations from automatic weather stations, upper-air d...

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