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Alexander E. MacDonald

Affiliation/Employer
Federal
Partner Affiliation
other_noaa
ORCID
Not available
Publon ID
Not available

Publications

Corresponding Articles: 23

Alexander E. Mac Donald authored and/or contributed to the following articles/publications.

Selection of Momentum Variables for a Three-Dimensional Variational Analysis

Three choices of control variables for meteorological variational analysis (3DVAR or 4DVAR) are associated with horizontal wind: (1) streamfunction and velocity potential, (2) eastward and northward velocity, and (3) vorticity and divergence. This study shows theoretical and numerical differences of these variables in practical 3DVAR data assimi...

Alexander E. MacDonald

A Multistep Flux-Corrected Transport Scheme

A multistep flux-corrected transport (MFCT) scheme is developed to achieve conservative and monotonic tracer transports for multistep dynamical cores. MFCT extends Zalesak two-time level scheme to any multistep time-differencing schemes by including multiple high-order fluxes in the antidiffusive flux, while computing the two-time level low-orde...

Alexander E. MacDonald

On the Use of an Adaptive, Hybrid-Isentropic Vertical Coordinate in Global Atmospheric Modeling

This article is one in a series describing the functionality of the Flow-Following, Finite-Volume Icosahedral Model (FIM) developed at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory. Emphasis in this article is on the design of the vertical coordinate—the ‘‘flow following’’ aspect of FIM. The coordinate is terrain-following near the ground and isentrop...

Alexander E. MacDonald

A Finite-Volume Icosahedral Shallow-Water Model on a Local Coordinate

An icosahedral-hexagonal shallow-water model (SWM) on the sphere is formulated on a local Cartesian coordinate based on the general stereographic projection plane. It is discretized with the third-order Adam–Bashforth time-differencing scheme and the second-order finite-volume operators for spatial derivative terms. The finite-volume operators a...

Alexander E. MacDonald

Estimating vertical velocity and radial flow from Doppler radar observations of tropical cyclones

The mesoscale vorticity method (MVM) is used in conjunction with the ground-based velocity track display (GBVTD) to derive the inner-core vertical velocity from Doppler radar observations of tropical cyclone (TC) Danny (1997). MVM derives the vertical velocity from vorticity variations in space and in time based on the mesoscale vorti...

Alexander E. MacDonald

Use of radar data for TC initialization and predictions

Hurricane track forecasts improve steadily over the last several decades primarily due to the increasing use of satellite observations in operational centers to improve large-scale environmental ow over ocean. However, intensity forecasts show very little improvement over the last decade because small-scale inner-core circulation can not be pro...

Alexander E. MacDonald

A global profiling system for improved weather and climate prediction

Alexander E. MacDonald

Application of GPS slant water vapor tomography to an IHOP storm case with simple constraints

Alexander E. MacDonald

USE OF DROPPLER RADAR TO IMPROVE HURRICANE INTENSITY FORECASTS

Alexander E. MacDonald

The vorticity method: Extension to mesoscale vertical velocity and validation for tropical storms

The vorticity method infers vertical velocity from vorticity variations in space and in time based on the vorticity equation. The viability of the large-scale vorticity method has been demonstrated in previous studies based on the quasi-geostrophic vorticity equation. However, the extension of the vorticity method to the mesoscale vorticity equa...

Alexander E. MacDonald

Transition of weather research to operations - Opportunities and challenges

The National Weather Service (NWS) of the United States has recently completed its modernization phase. This comprehensive modernization has put into place new observing systems, both ground-based and in space. The modernization has also involved the consolidation of field forecast offices, the relocation of field offices, and changes in the sta...

Alexander E. MacDonald

MADIS: The Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System

Alexander E. MacDonald

Initialization of a hurricane vortex based on single-Doppler radar observations

Alexander E. MacDonald

ESTIMATING VERTICAL VELOCITY IN A HURRICANE WITH SINGLE-DOPPLER RADAR DATA

Alexander E. MacDonald

INITIALIZATION OF A HURRICANE VORTEX WITH A SINGLE-DOPPLER RADAR DATA

Alexander E. MacDonald

THE ROLE OF ADVANCED COMPUTING IN FUTURE WEATHER PREDICTION

Alexander E. MacDonald

The wild card in the climate change debate

Alexander E. MacDonald

An Introduction to FSL's Assimilation Model Experiment (FAME)

Alexander E. MacDonald

AN INTRODUCTION TO FSLS ASSIMilATION MODEL EXPERIMENT (FAME)

Alexander E. MacDonald

QNH: Mesoscale bounded derivative initialization and winter storm test over complex terrain

Mesoscale bounded derivative initialization (BDI) is utilized to derive dynamical constraints, from which elliptic equations are formulated to derive smooth initial fields over complex terrain for mesoscale models. The initialization is implemented specifically for the quasi-nonhydrostatic (QNH) model. This study presents the first real data ap...

Alexander E. MacDonald

GAINS instrumentation

Alexander E. MacDonald

Bounded derivative mesoscale initialization over complex terrain

Alexander E. MacDonald

Future cost-competitive electricity systems and their impact on US CO2 emissions

Carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation are a major cause of anthropogenic climate change. The deployment of wind and solar power reduces these emissions, but is subject to the variability of the weather. In the present study, we calculate the cost-optimized configuration of variable electrical power generators using weather data wi...

Alexander E. MacDonald
Institutions Earth System Research Laboratory - ESRL National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - NOAA