Abstract
Recently, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) released a new Global Atmospheric Reanalysis (CRA-40) dataset for the period 1979–2018. In this study, surface relative humidity (RH) from CRA-40 and other current reanalyses (e.g., CFSR, ERA5, ERA-Interim, JRA-55, and MERRA-2) is comprehensively evaluated against homogenized observations over China. The results suggest that most reanalyses overestimate the observations by 15%–30% (absolute difference) over the Tibetan Plateau but underestimate the observations by 5%–10% over most of northern China. The CRA-40 performs relatively well in describing the long-term change and variance seen in the observed surface RH over China. Most of the reanalyses reproduce the observed surface RH climatology and interannual variations well, while few reanalyses can capture the observed long-term RH trends over China. Among these reanalyses, the CFSR does poorly in describing the interannual changes in the observed RH, especially in Southwest China. An empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis also suggests that the CRA-40 performs better than other reanalyses to capture the first two leading EOF modes revealed by the observations. The results of this study are expected to improve understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the current reanalysis products and thus facilitate their application.
摘 要
最近, 国家气象局发布了国产第一代全球大气再分析 (CRA-40) 数据集, 本文利用均一化的相对湿度观测资料评估了 CRA-40 及其他国际新一代大气再分析产品 (CFSR、 ERA-5、 ERA-Interim、 JRA-55 和 MERRA-2) 在中国地区的适用性. 结果表明, 大多数再分析产品在青藏高原高估了观测值 15-30% (相对湿度绝对差, 下同), 而在我国北方大部分地区低估了观测值 5-10%. CRA-40 能够较好地描述了中国地表相对湿度的长期变化. 大部分再分析产品可以较好地再现观测相对湿度的气候态和年际变化, 而所有再分析产品无法捕捉到观测相对湿度的长期趋势. 在这些再分析产品中, CFSR 在描述相对湿度年际变化方面效果很差, 尤其是在我国西南地区. 经验正交函数分析 (EOF) 也表明, CRA-40 比其他再分析产品更容易捕获观测相对湿度的时空模态. 这项研究的结果将有助于加深对现有大气再分析产品优缺点的认识, 从而促进其应用.
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Acknowledgements
The CRA-40 data were provided by the China Meteorological Administration (CMA). The CFSR, MERRA-2, and JRA-55 were obtained from the NASA Center for Climate Simulation/Goddard Space Flight Center (https://esgf.nccs.nasa.gov/). The ERA5 data were obtained from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store, and the ERA-interim data were obtained from the ECMWF Data Server at http://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/. This work was supported by grants from the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. XDA19030402 and XDA19030401), the China Meteorological Administration Special Public Welfare Research Fund (Grant No. GYHY201506002), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41675094, 41975115), the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (Grant No. 2021JQ-166), Chinese Universities Scientific Fund (Grant No. 2452019224), and Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of the Loess Plateau Soil Erosion and Water Process and Control, Ministry of Water Resources of China (Grant No. HTGY202002).
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Article Highlights
• Performances of the CRA-40 and current reanalyses in reproducing surface relative humidity in China are evaluated based on homogenized observations.
• The CRA-40 performs well among the current reanalysis products in describing the long-term change and variance of the observed surface relative humidity in China.
• Most of the current reanalyses reproduce the observed surface relative humidity climatology and interannual variations well, except for the observed long-term trends.
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Zhang, J., Zhao, T., Li, Z. et al. Evaluation of Surface Relative Humidity in China from the CRA-40 and Current Reanalyses. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 38, 1958–1976 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-021-0333-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-021-0333-6