The North Atlantic Oscillation Simulated by Versions 2 and 4 of IAP/ LASG GOALS Model

The capabilities of two versions of the Global-Ocean-Atmosphere-Land-System model (i.e. GOALS-2 and GOALS-4) developed at State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG), are validated in terms of the simulations of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which is currently the subject of considerable scientific interest. The results show that both GOALS-2 and GOALS-4 exhibit a realistic NAO signal associated with relatively reasonable spatial pat-terns of sea level pressure, surface air temperature, and precipitation. Generally speaking, the associated pat-terns of precipitation in GOALSs match better with the observation in comparison with the case of surface temperature. For the imprint of NAO on the ocean, or perhaps a coupling between the two fluids, the asso-ciated tripole patterns of the North Atlantic SST anomaly are presented distinctly in GOALS-2, for GOALS-4 however, this is not the case. Spatially, the models’ main deficiencies appear to be that the simu-lated Icelandic lows shift northward apparently, which in turn result in the blemish of GOALSs in repro-ducing the accompanied surface wind anomalies. For the interannual and even longer time scale variations of DJF sea level pressure (SLP) over the North Atlantic region. GOALSs reproduce the center with the strongest variability rationally, but the intensities are far weaker than the observation.