UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE WILLIAM M. DALEY SECRETARY OF COMMERCE

NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION D. JAMES BAKER UNDERSECRETARY FOR OCEANS AND ATMOSPHERE

ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LABORATORIES JAMES L. RASMUSSEN DIRECTOR

Mention of a commercial company or product does not constitute an endorsement by NOAA Environmental Research Laboratories. Use for publicity or advertising purposes of information from this publication concerning proprietary products or the tests of such products is not authorized.

This document summarizes recent research activities at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and presents a glimpse of the planned direction of this research for the near future. The distribution of this report is intended primarily for GFDL members, Princeton University affiliates, and offices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), but it is also freely available to other relevant government agencies, national organizations, and interested individuals.

The organization of this document encompasses an overview, project activities and plans for the current and next fiscal year, and appendices. The overview covers highlights of the three major research areas that correspond to Strategic Plan Elements in NOAA's Environmental Assessment and Prediction Portfolio: Advance Short-Term Forecasts and Warnings; Seasonal to Interannual Climate Forecasts; and Predict and Assess Decadal to Centennial Changes, plus a new category of topics which cuts across all three time scales. The body of the text describes goals, specific recent achievements, and future plans for the following major research categories: Climate Dynamics; Middle Atmosphere Dynamics and Chemistry; Experimental Prediction; Oceanic Circulation; Planetary Circulations; Observational Studies; Hurricane Dynamics; and Mesoscale Dynamics. These categories, which correspond to the GFDL organization of research groups, are different from the NOAA categories and are far from being mutually exclusive. Interaction occurs among the various groups and is strongly encouraged. The last section of the body is a description of the Laboratory's computational support and its plans for the coming fiscal year.

The appendices contain the following: a list of GFDL staff members and affiliates during Fiscal Year 1997; a bibliography of relatively recent research papers published by staff members and affiliates during their tenure with GFDL (these are referred to in the main body according to the appropriate reference number or letter); a listing of seminars presented at GFDL during Fiscal Year 1997; a list of seminars and talks presented during Fiscal Year 1997 by GFDL staff members and affiliates at other locations; and a list of acronyms.

The Scientific Editor for this report was John Sheldon, with Wendy Marshall serving as Technical Editor. This year's report is especially remarkable in that it marks a transition to a totally digital creation and submission approach, and it is also the first to employ color. It is the culmination of an unusually strenuous team effort involving a large majority of the GFDL staff and their Princeton University collaborators. Special thanks are extended to all who contributed to this work.

September 1997

*Portions of this document contain material that has not yet been formally published and may not be quoted or referenced without explicit permission of the author(s).