The North American Monsoon Model Assessment Project: Integrating numerical modeling into a field-based process study

The international North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME) was organized to improve understanding and prediction skill of warm-season precipitation fluctuations in the monsoonal region of southwest North America. Needing to improve its numerical simulation for the monsoon circulation and its large-scale effects, NAME organizers came up with the NAME Model Assessment Project or NAMAP, which is designed to evaluate the warm-season climate modeling before the field campaign and to provide benchmark simulations of warm-season precipitation, and the physical processes that control precipitation. NAMAP was also designed to assess a wide range of dynamical models with different spatial and temporal resolutions, computational domains, and physical parameterizations. The resultant NAMAP analysis includes discussion of monthly mean precipitation, temperature, low-level wind, and surface flux fields, archived to preserve the monthly mean diurnal cycle.