? About GFDL

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? About GFDL

#1 Postby Guest » Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:07 pm

Why is it that if you run the Frances loop the hurricane moves more NW but if you run the TD 8 loop it has Frances @ a much lower latitude & then moving toward South Fla.

http://met.psu.edu/tropical/tcgengifs/
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Wthrman13
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#2 Postby Wthrman13 » Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:03 pm

Good question. It has to do with the way the GFDL is run. Basically it uses a set of "nested" grids. That is there are 2 or 3 model grids, one inside the other, with each inner grid having a higher resolution than the next one out. In this way, you can focus on a feature of interest (in this case a hurricane) and run a very high resolution forecast, without sacrificing too much computing power that you would by running the entire model domain with that high of a resolution. The inner grids also move with the storm. So, what you are seeing is the GFDL run of Hermine has Frances in one of it's outer grids, so it's still part of the run. However, since that outer grid is of a coarser resolution, it will handle Frances differently (and presumably less accurately) than the Frances run of the GFDL which has the fine grids focused on Frances (instead of Hermine). Does that make sense?
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#3 Postby wjs3 » Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:05 pm

Great reply. Thanks.
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#4 Postby Guest » Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:18 pm

Thanks that did clear things up a bit.
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