Thermal convection, ensemble weather forecasting and distributed chaos

Abstract

Results of direct numerical simulations have been used to show that intensive thermal convection in a horizontal layer and on a hemisphere can be described by the distributed chaos approach. The vorticity and helicity dominated distributed chaos were considered for this purpose. Results of numerical simulations of the Weather Research and Forecast Model (with the moist convection and with the Coriolis effect) and of the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) were also analysed to demonstrate applicability of this approach to the atmospheric processes. The ensemble forecasts of the real winter storms in the East Coast and Pacific Northwest as well as results of a simulation experiment with the multiscale storm-scale ensemble forecasts for eleven cases of mid-latitude convection in the central U.S. have been also discussed in this context.