A wave of new consumer price hikes has hit Greece as European Union finance ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss the country's debt crisis.
The center-left government has increased the main sales tax from 19 to 21 percent, as part of a euro16 billion ($22 billion) austerity package to cut the budget deficit by almost a third this year.
The tax hike came into effect …
Most cooks I know are also avid gardeners, perhaps because fresh-picked produce tastes like heaven. We all plant more than we thinkwill come up, and when it all does, we're inundated with vegetables.So each summer I teach a cooking class for anyone groaning under theweight of a too-abundant garden.
By the holidays, many of my cooking companions are searching outtheir copies of favorite class recipes. Christmas is coming up, andthat means vegetable side dishes.
Everyone has annual favorites - candied sweet potatoes, green beancasserole, creamed pearl onions. These are the givens. But thetradition in my family is to try one or two originals each year. Forthis, we need …
WASHINGTON (AP) — The big Republican gains in Congress could make it harder for President Barack Obama to keep his pledge to start bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan by next summer and dim prospects for several of his administration's centerpiece military and diplomatic initiatives.
The Republican victories seem likely to derail congressional efforts to repeal the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" ban on gays serving openly in the military, thwart efforts to curb the growth of Pentagon spending and frustrate hopes for quick ratification of a nuclear arms control agreement with Russia.
More Republicans in Washington may also mean trouble for Obama's efforts to improve …
HUNTINGTON - Stan Hill is accustomed to being in the pocket.
But not this pocket.
Instead of standing tall in the pass pocket, Marshall University'sstarting quarterback spent most of MU's first spring practice heretoday standing with his hands in his sweat pants pockets. He did takethem out long enough, though, to throw a few passes.
"I still have two more months in my rehab cycle," said Hill, whounderwent off-season surgery on his left knee. "So, I'm just outthere taking it easy."
Or so it seemed.
But the truth of the matter is the senior quarterback's pulse wasracing, his heart was pounding and his adrenalin was pumping.
"It's still …
WASHINGTON - Nine high-ranking Army officers, including four generals, made critical errors in reporting the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, but there was no criminal wrongdoing in the shooting of the former NFL player, the military concluded Monday.
Defense officials and a pair of reports released Monday on the 2004 incident, however, did not rule out criminal action by those who provided misleading information as the military was investigating the killing. They said, however, that they believed there was no orchestrated cover-up.
Army and Defense Department investigators said officers looking into Tillman's death passed along misleading …
In an April 19 story about a poll finding American support for government-paid legal services for the poor, The Associated …
Mark Aguirre scored 25 points and took control in the finalminutes as the Detroit Pistons outscored the host Los Angeles Lakers11-0 in overtime to win 108-97 Friday night in a rematch of lastseason's NBA finalists.
The Pistons outscored the Lakers 19-2 after trailing 93-89 with3:22 left. Aguirre scored eight of the Pistons' next 10 points togive them a 97-95 lead with 25 seconds left before A.C. Green's twofree throws with seven seconds left forced the overtime.
Aguirre scored the first four points in overtime and Los Angeleswas unable to score in the five-minute extra period.
Joe Dumars led Detroit with 26 points. Magic Johnson scored 28for the Lakers, …
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Former Alabama Gov. Bob Riley has been injured in a motorcycle accident near Fairbanks, Alaska.
Riley's former chief of staff, Dave Stewart, said it happened Sunday afternoon on a dirt and gravel road near Fairbanks. It was raining and the former governor "had to lay the motorcycle down" to avoid losing control, Stewart said Monday.
Stewart said Riley was being …
A passenger train in northern India crashed into another train's rear carriage reserved for women and disabled passengers, killing 22 people and injuring 16 who remained trapped for hours Wednesday near Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal, police said.
Rescuers had to cut open the wrecked compartment to free trapped passengers following the crash outside Agra, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) southeast of New Delhi, said Rajesh Bajpai, a railway spokesman.
Rescuers recovered 19 bodies during an operation that lasted nearly seven hours, said Rajesh Dikshit, a police spokesman. Three of the 19 injured people died at a hospital, police said.
No foreigners …
WASHINGTON The 8-mm. film of John F. Kennedy's assassination, 26seconds of horrific images that will forever flicker in the memory ofAmerica, is again causing controversy.
A congressional review board overseeing records of the 1963shooting is hearing arguments over its possible release from theNational Archives, where it is kept in a specially cooled chamberalongside Eva Braun's home movies of Adolf Hitler.
Efforts are being made to stop it from being returned to therelatives of Abraham Zapruder, the Dallas dress manufacturer who shotthe film.Life magazine first got hold of the pictures, paying $150,000for the rights, but five years after Zapruder's death from …
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Defending champions Carlos Sainz in the cars category and Cyril Despres on a bike return to defend their titles when the Dakar Rally starts on Saturday from the Argentine capital.
Officials say 430 vehicles across four categories — cars, bikes, quads and trucks — are expected to begin the race which will cover 9,500 kilometers across northern Argentina and along the spine of Chile. The race ends on Jan. 16 back in Buenos Aires. It the third straight year the race has been held in the two South American countries.
Saturday's start is a ceremonial leg with the drivers following a 370-kilometer route northwest to Victoria, where they will prepare …
The 2015 Walker Cup will be held at the Royal Lytham and St. Annes course in northwest England.
The links course has twice hosted the Ryder Cup and staged the British Open 10 times.
The Royal & Ancient director of championships David Hill says the course will "provide a stern test befitting a contest that has come to represent the pinnacle of amateur achievement."
The biannual amateur match between the United States and a combined Britain and Ireland team is scheduled for Scotland's Royal Aberdeen in 2011 and the National Links of America in New York on 2013.
NEW YORK (AP) — Treasury prices are rising, a day after they plunged on news that Europe has a plan to contain the Greek debt crisis.
The price of the 10-year Treasury note rose 66 cents for every $100 invested, pushing its yield down to 2.32 percent in early afternoon trading Friday from 2.39 percent late Thursday.
Demand for Treasurys dwindled Thursday after European leaders announced a deal to strengthen banks, expand a regional bailout fund and reduce Greece's debt.
Prices turned higher Friday as traders began to scrutinize the deal, which lacks many key details such as how the new fund will work. Economic uncertainty makes Treasurys more attractive because they tend to hold their value when other investments decline.
Cuban television on Tuesday showed the first images of Fidel Castro in six months, with a silent video of the ailing revolutionary chatting in a garden with visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
The 81-year-old Castro looked thinner, and his hair and beard appeared much whiter, in the latest video, which did not include audio. But he nevertheless looked vigorous and animated as he talked with Chavez and younger brother Raul Castro. He wore in a white track-suit jacket with red and blue trim.
The green of trees could be seen all around the trio in the video, but it was impossible to determine exactly where the meeting took place.
It was the second meeting in as many days between the elder Castro and Chavez, who are close friends.
Chavez told reporters about the Tuesday meeting before boarding a flight back to Venezuela in the afternoon.
"With Fidel, we conversed nearly three hours yesterday, and almost two hours more today, walking in a garden," Chavez told reporters in images broadcast on Venezuelan state television. "Today, we were revising the entire plan for energy exchanges and the strengthening of refinery capacity and production of petroleum and petrochemicals."
The two countries are collaborating on a major petroleum refinery and petrochemical plant in the eastern Cuban port city of Cienfuegos.
Chavez said he and the 81-year-old former Cuban president on Tuesday also discussed the need for both countries to produce their own food, using as little land as possible.
"Cuba has very good land, great experience, well-formed human capital, as do we," Chavez said. "They are two revolutions in one to guarantee our nations, Cuba and Venezuela, the greatest sum of happiness possible."
State media for both countries earlier reported on the men's three-hour private meeting on Monday.
No details about Castro's state of health were mentioned by reports on either encounter.
Castro has not been seen in public since he fell ill nearly two years ago and was last seen in a still photograph in January.
The Communist Party daily Granma described the first meeting with Chavez as "animated and affectionate," and said the men discussed financial and energy world crises and the situation in Venezuela.
Chavez also met Monday with President Raul Castro.
Fidel Castro's exact medical ailment and condition have remained state secrets since he underwent emergency intestinal surgery in late July 2006 and ceded provisional power to Raul, who replaced him permanently as president in February.
Fidel Castro has not been seen in official images since January, when photographs were released showing him looking frail, but alert as he playfully photographed visiting Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
No videos or photographs were released when Chavez last met with the elder Castro in March, or when Bolivian President Evo Morales met with him last month.
Much work remains to be done in the effort to curb illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, according to representatives of governments and nongovernmental organizations who met in New York City July 7-11. The meeting was organized to discuss the progress made in the two years since the signing of a Program of Action, which identifies national, regional, and global measures needed to slow the illegal small arms trade.
The experts said that some of the outstanding issues that still need to be tackled include stockpile destruction and management, export and import controls, research, institution building, and human security issues. Receiving particular attention was the notion of marking and tracing small arms and light weapons so they can be better tracked from buyer to buyer. A group of governmental experts recommended the creation of an international instrument for marking and tracing.
The meeting provided an opportunity for states to report on their progress in enacting national legislation and coordinating regional and international action to stop small-arm and lightweapon trade. Both states and nongovernmental groups identified national legislation on arms brokering and end-use monitoring as major priorities. But neither issue was discussed in depth, according to a diplomat involved in the proceedings.
Some delegates attending the conference pointed out the difficulty in implementing the 2001 Program of Action in countries with internal conflicts or little infrastructure to create and enforce laws. Chairperson Kuniko Inoguchi of Japan said significant progress has been made worldwide on national implementation of measures to stop illicit arms trading, with more than 90 countries reporting that they have domestic laws to govern illicit manufacture, possession, or trade. Inoguchi also pointed out the important progress on the issue of destroying existing stockpiles, noting that "the destruction of almost half of an estimated total of over four million weapons collected and disposed of during the last decade had taken place over the past two years."
The next biennial meeting is set to take place in 2005; representatives are expected to discuss a plan on how to create effective legislation that will address the wide variety of obstacles to curbing the illicit small-arms and light-weapons trade.
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia's prime minister says he is resigning to prevent political turmoil.
"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."--Warren Buffet
This well-known business philosophy may be attributed to the oracle of Omaha, but it's one that's also embraced by Bill Rush.
Rush, president of Port Wayne's The DeHayes Group, a local company that provides insurance to more than 1,100 businesses and 1,700 families, strives to be proactive in his business approach and exceed expectations beyond insurance (his organiaation's motto), as well.
But with ever-changing government regulations and an economic pinch that has put many small insurance providers out of business, how dues Rush change a company motto into a genuine passion?
The answer may lie in The DeHayes Group's history. In 1982 David DeHayes founded The DeHayes Group as a commercial property and casualty insurance agency. Eventually it expanded into personal home and automobile insurance, employee benefits and then a separate senior benefits division. By continued growth earned through meeting community insurance needs, as well acquisitions, DeHayes has become one of the area's leading insurance providers.
Rush joined DeHayes in 1985 and bought the company from David DeHayes in April 2005, leaving the name intact, as it had garnered a positive reputation. Like Warren Buffet, Rush believes value, and is committed to offering a product that protects client assets while fostering relationships.
"We don't 'sell' insurance to anyone," Rush says. "We buy insurance for clients based on risks that we have mutually agreed to handle through insurance. What sets us apart from our competition is that we work closely with decision makers in both businesses and families to guide them through the process of making informed decisions about risk. Insurance is a way we handle their exposure to loss."
It seems as though DeHayes' clients would agree, as learning their business becomes integral to helping protect them from loss.
"We've worked with The DeHayes Group for over 25 years,"
says Gregg Parrish, president of Commercial Warehouse and Cartage Inc. "During that time it has consistently proven to be knowledgeable about the insurance marketplace and an advocate for us anytime there is a claim. It has become a true partner, helping us make informed business decisions about the treatment of the risks we face."
In order to provide a superior product at a competitive rate, in 2006 DeHayes became a partner in the Keystone Insurers Group, an organization owned by more than 225 agency partners. The cooperative purchasing power the group allowed members to compete both locally and nationally with large insurance brokers, yet permits the organization to remain locally owned and focused. This cooperative purchasing power becomes crucial as the local and national economic climates change and dollars spent on insurance are reduced. Employee benefits are on a downturn as companies put a freeze on hiring, and in 2011 employees experienced significant losses, causing the price of insurance to rise in a poor economy. Rush, however, sees an opportunity for success and eventual expansion in spite of the challenges. Other local insurance agencies have merged because of the economic crunch, creating fewer competitors, and DeHayes' local ownership continues to he beneficial.
"The key to the success of our business is the quality of the people working here," Rush says. "We find the best people we can and give them the opportunity to grow. Fort Wayne isn't small, but it's like a small community in that people want to have a personal relationship with those they do business with. So we make those relationships our top priority."
The DeHayes Group
Locations: Main office: 5150 West Jefferson Boulevard
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46804
North office: 11118 Coldwater Road
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46845
President: William A. Rush, CPCU, ARM
Phone: (260) 424-5826
Fax: (260) 422-5801
Email: bill@dehayes.com
Website: www.dehayes.com
Number of employees: 37
Years in business: 29
Services provided: The DeHayes Group insures businesses large and small in the areas of property and casualty insurance, employee benefits and personal home and auto insurance, and has a separate senior benefits division. The company insures more than 1,100 businesses and 1,700 families.
Products & Services
The DeHayes Group insures businesses large and small in the areas of property and casualty insurance; employee benefits; and personal, home and auto insurance; and has a separate senior benefits division. The following are some of the products and services the company offers:
Business insurance:
* Disaster preparedness
* Trucking
* Contractors and home builders
* Apartments and condominiums
* Gun Shops
* Health Clubs
* Hospitals
DeHayes also uses a compliance check system in order to develop comprehensive risk management for each client. This includes worker's compensation modification, risk transfer, business income insurance and OSHA awareness.
Personal insurance:
* Auto and motorcycle
* Recreational vehicle and watercraft
* Homeowners, renters, condo and rental property insurance
* Flood
* Umbrella policy
* Individual life insurance
* Individual health insurance
Employee benefits:
DeHayes helps employers choose a plan for employees based on:
* Affordability
* Monthly premiums
* Extent of coverage
* Deductibles
* Use of health insurance network
Senior benefits:
Senior benefits refers to policies that help clients maintain independence during the aging process. Policies include Medicare supplements and Medicare Advantage coverage. This long-term care insurance helps defray the cost of serious illness, injury or disability that results in ongoing care, a growing concern for aging populations.
PITTSBURGH - Third baseman David Wright of the Mets, with teammate Paul Lo Duca on the mound, put on a show in the first round of the All-Star Home Run Derby on Monday night. Wright took the lead with 16 home runs, easily surpassing Marlins third baseman Miguel Cabrera's nine.
Wright's 16 homers was the third most ever in the first round of a derby, behind Bobby Abreu and David Ortiz in 2005, with 24 and 17.
The 23-year-old Cabrera took the lead at the All-Star Home Run Derby by pounding nine first-round home runs on Monday night.
The third hitter, Cabrera easily bested Astros first baseman Lance Berkman and Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada, who hit three each.
Tejada, who hit 17 home runs in the first half, never got into a groove leading off.
Berkman, who hit 24 homers in the first half, hit the first ball into the Allegheny River, about 460 feet to right field. Berkman struggled to elevate the ball.
Blue Jays third baseman Troy Glaus, who was blanked in his last try at the Home Run Derby in 2001, hit a mammoth shot down the left field line for his first homer. Unfortunately, several of his other shots fell at the warning track and he finished with one. He was the first player eliminated.
The four top totals out of the eight contestants will advance to the second round.
A rule change for this year's derby may impact the result. This year, the home run total from the first round will carry over to the second round. The top two players after the first two rounds will advance to the championship round, and the slate will be wiped clean. Only home runs in that final round will determine the winner.
Phillies outfielder Bobby Abreu put on a show last year in Detroit, setting a Derby mark with 41 home runs total.
The contestants coming up are White Sox right fielder Jermaine Dye; Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz; and Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard.
Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski, who hit the famous walk-off home run at Pittsburgh's old Forbes Field in the 1960 World Series, threw out the first pitch.
How many times have you said to your employees:
"My door is always open"? If, on those occasions, no one subsequently crossed the threshold of your office, you can be sure that your trite offer to hear out employee ideas and concerns was rejected as being insincere.
"Don't just talk opendoor policy. Practise it by walking around and talking to employees," say the editors of Communication Briefings, a monthly bulletin that is circulated throughout North America. "Allow people to disagree and to come up with new ideas."
Managers should have personal contact with their employees, the editors say. One way to break the ice is to step away from the "management huddle" in social settings and have a word or two with the people who work for them.
"Put more emphasis on face-to-face communication;' the editors urge. "Don't rely mainly on bulletin boards, memos and other written communication [such as e-mail]."
It is the job of the manager to coax employees into opening up. Reprovingly telling employees that they should "not stand on the sidelines" will not work.
"Concentrate on building credibility," the editors advise management. "Managers who lack credibility and fail to create a climate of trust and openness aren't believed, no matter how hard they try to communicate."
Communicating better with employees will affect the bottom line positively. Conversely, failing to communicate effectively, say the editors, will lead to "poor cooperation and coordination, a lower level of productivity, undercurrents of tension, gossip and rumours, and increased turnover and absenteeism."
STOCKHOLM (AP) — A storm from the broiling sun turned the chilly northernmost skies of Earth into an ever-changing and awe-provoking art show of northern lights on Tuesday.
Even experienced stargazers were stunned by the intensity of the aurora borealis that swept across the night sky in northern Scandinavia after the biggest solar flare in six years.
"It has been absolutely incredible," British astronomer John Mason cried from the deck of the MS Midnatsol, a cruise ship plying the fjord-fringed coast of northern Norway.
"I saw my first aurora 40 years ago, and this is one of the best," Mason told The Associated Press, his voice nearly drowning in the cheers of awe-struck fellow passengers.
U.S. space weather experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday evening that so far they had heard of no problems from the storm that triggered the auroras, which made it as far south as Wales, where the weather often doesn't cooperate with good viewing.
It was part of the strongest solar storm in years, but the sun is likely to get even more active in the next few months and years, said physicist Doug Biesecker at the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
"To me this was a wake up call. The sun is reminding us that solar max is approaching," Biesecker said. "A lot worse is in store for us. We hope that you guys are paying attention. I would say we passed with flying colors."
Even before particles from the solar storm reached the Earth on Tuesday, a different aurora Monday night was dancing across the sky as far south as Ireland and England, where people rarely get a chance to catch the stunning light show.
Those northern lights were likely just variations in normal background solar wind, not the solar storm that erupted Sunday, Biesecker said.
Tuesday's colorful display may not have moved that far south, limiting its audience, but those who got to see it got brilliance in the sky that had not been around for years.
"It was the biggest northern lights I've seen in the five-six years that I've worked here," said Andreas Hermansson, a tour guide at the Ice Hotel in the Swedish town of Jukkasjarvi, above the Arctic Circle.
He was leading a group of tourists on a bus tour in the area when a green glow that had lingered in the sky for much of the evening virtually exploded into a spectacle of colors around 10:15 p.m.
"We stopped the bus. And suddenly it was just this gigantic display of dancing lights and Technicolor," said Michele Cahill, an Irish psychologist, who was on the tour. "It was an absolutely awesome display. It went on for over an hour. Literally one would have to lie on the ground to capture it all."
But in -30 degrees F (-35 C), that didn't seem like a good idea.
An aurora appears when a magnetic solar wind slams into the Earth's magnetic field, exciting electrons of oxygen and nitrogen.
The northern lights are sometimes seen from northern Scotland, but they were also visible Monday night from northeast England and Ireland, where such sightings are a rarity.
"The lights appear as green and red mist. It's been mostly green the past few nights. I don't know if that's just special for Ireland," said Gerard O'Kane, a 41-year-old taxi driver and vice chairman of the Buncrana Camera Club in County Donegal in Ireland's northwest corner.
He and at least two dozen amateur photographers were meeting after dark at a local beach for an all-night stakeout. They've been shooting the horizon from dozens of locations since Friday night.
Scientists have been expecting solar eruptions to become more intense as the sun enters a more active phase of its 11-year cycle, with an expected peak in 2013.
But in recent years the sun appeared quieter than normal, leading scientists to speculate that it was going into an unusually quiet cycle that seems to happen once a century or so.
While the geomagnetic part of the solar eruption — which happened around 11 p.m. EST Sunday — was more of a fizzle, another earlier part of the sun's outburst was more powerful.
On Monday and Tuesday, the proton radiation from the eruption reached strong levels, the most powerful since October 2003. That mostly affects astronauts and satellites, but NASA said the crew on the International Space Station was not harmed and only a few minor problems with satellites were reported, Biesecker said.
However, some airplane flights over the North Pole have been rerouted because of expected communication problems from the radiation.
Geomagnetic storms cause awesome sights, but they can also bring trouble. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, problems can include current surges in power lines, and interference in the broadcast of radio, TV and telephone signals. No such problems were reported Tuesday.
Peter Richardson, a 49-year-old bar manager and part-time poet at the 17th-century Tan Hill Inn in northern England, said the pub — normally dead on a Monday night in January — was thronged until the wee hours of the morning with people who came to look at the lights.
"I just thought: 'Oh my God, this is just absolutely amazing,'" he said. "You do get a lot of spectacular skylines out here, but that was just something out of the ordinary. Very different."
Ken Kennedy, director of the Aurora section of the British Astronomical Association, said the northern lights may be visible for a few more days.
The Canadian Space Agency posted a geomagnetic storm warning Tuesday after residents were also treated to a spectacular show in the night sky.
John Manuel, a scientist with the Canadian Space Agency, said there's an increased chance of seeing northern lights over northern Canada on Tuesday night.
"It's not likely people in the major Canadian cities further south will see a significant aurora tonight," he said. "There's always a possibility but the current forecast is for a good show for people who live further north. It should be a particularly good night tonight."
___
AP Science Writer Borenstein reported from Washington. AP writers Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin, Raphael Satter in London and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
___
On the Web:
http://www.auroraskystation.com/live-camera/9/
Atrue story: A friend of mine in Seattle recently got ahankering for pizza. Seattle has plenty of pizza, but it doesn'thave Pizzeria Uno, the legendary joint that hooked my friend onChicago deep-dish pies many years ago.
Usually, my buddy can make do with any old oregano-flavoredbread dough, but on this particular day he was like some 1,200-poundmoose in mating season. He had to have Pizzeria Uno.
Lucky for him, America is a country where you not only can growup to be president, but you can satisfy eccentric food cravings, too.Only $169 later, my friend had his Chicago pizza - via air courier.
Few men go to such lengths to indulge food cravings. Mostprobably won't even admit they're slave to certain snacks. Real menmight eat quiche, but they're not supposed to crave it.
The truth is, though, men do hunger after certain foods. Justask Harvey Weingarten, a McMaster University psychologist whorecently conducted a survey of the eating habits of college students.Over two-thirds of the 385 men in his study confessed to foodcravings. "Some craved a food almost daily. The mean was about fiveto nine cravings a month," says Weingarten.
Psychologists have proposed the controversial theory thatcravings are biological drives to correct nutritional deficiencies, akind of wisdom of the body: We want what we need. But more widelyaccepted theories stress the links between foods and the feelingsthey evoke. Like Pavlov's dog, we may be conditioned to seek outcertain foods because of their positive associations - and avoidothers because of the unpleasant memories they stir up.
"Bacon means breakfast; cake means birthdays; popcorn meansmovies, and macaroni and cheese can mean that you've run out ofmoney," wrote Canadian psychologist Bernard Lyman, in his book, APsychology of Food.
Even certain emotional states may provoke food cravings,according to Lyman. College students chose full meals over junk foodwhen they were happy, ate hearty steak-and-potato meals when theywere self-confident. When they felt sad and lonely, they chosesoups, suggestive of hearth and home. In romantic, affectionatemoods, they went for alcohol.
But let's get down to cases. Here are the foods men say theycrave the most - and why they crave them. Meat: Hamburgers, cheeseburgers and chicken wings were hits onWeingarten's survey. Similarly, studies of food preferences of theU.S. military over the past 25 years show men like nothing betterthan to sink their teeth into a thick slab of grilled steak. Variousresearchers peg the craving for meat on its sensory qualities - itstaste, smell and texture. Few aromas pique the appetite quicker thanthe smell of a sizzling steak.
Herbert L. Meiselman, a leading U.S. Army food researcher,thinks the appeal of meat is simple:
"It's flavorful."
That's it?
"Well," he says, "men like to chew on things."
Adam Drewnowski, director of the human nutrition program at theUniversity of Michigan, sug gests another, albeit not entirely surprising, explanation.Meat-eating is manly, he reminds us, linked to hunting and ourcaveman roots. To some degree, then, men crave meat to live up tome-hunter, you-Jane sex roles. Pasta, carbohydrates: "What is it about having meat and notpotatoes?" asks Dr. Norman Rosenthal, a psychiatrist at the NationalInstitute of Mental Health. "When you see tuna, why does your braintell you to have bread? I don't think the flavor or texture ofstarchy foods really explains it. I think something more is goingon."
That "something more" may be simple habit, but some scientistssuspect cravings for carbohydrates are a signal to eat food that willbring about desirable mood changes.
Nutrients can alter the manufacture of neurotransmitters, thebrain's chemical messengers. One of these, serotonin, has atension-relieving effect on the body. Studies by Judith Wurtman, aresearcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, show thatcarbohydrates trigger a series of chemical events that stimulate thebrain to produce serotonin. Wurtman theorizes that we go after breadand pasta for their calming, attention-focusing effects.
Rosenthal has studied people with seasonal affective disorder,also known as winter depression, and found they crave sweet, starchyfoods during the short days of fall and winter. Carbohydrate-richsnacks gave them more energy, his studies show. Thus, saysRosenthal, author of Seasons of the Mind (Bantam Books), pasta andother starchy foods have some anti-depressant value. Ice cream, cake, candy: Drewnowski points out that many popularsnacks contain large amounts of fat. In fact, calorie for calorie,many sweets contain more fat than carbohydrate. Drawing on studiesshowing sugar-fat combinations like ice cream are particularlyirresistible, Drewnowski speculates: "So-called carbohydrate-craversreally are craving sugar and fat."
Some animal research suggests high-fat and high-sugar foodsstimulate production of endorphins, the natural opiate-like compoundsin the brain. Drewnowski has found something similar with humans:Injecting subjects with a drug that blocked endorphins decreasedtheir cravings for high-sugar, high-fat snacks such as M & M's.Thus, it's possible that high-fat, high-sugar foods influence thesame pleasure centers that heroin and other addictive drugs affect.The implication: Our sweet-fat tooth gets us high.
More traditional explanations for the drive across town at 11p.m. to get ice cream emphasize the cool, creamy texture of aspoonful of Haagen-Dazs. A recent survey for Parade magazine foundmen are more likely than women to beat the blues with ice cream.While we can't directly taste fat, it has a highly desirable mouthfeel.
Of course, we may have first learned that desire in our highchairs if Mom and Dad used desserts as a reward for finishing meals.Our sugar habit also has a respectable evolutionary history linked tothe need for energy and calories. The survival of our earlyancestors depended on ripe fruit to provide nutrients, which probablycreated a built-in drive for sweets. Next time you reach for alittle mocha chip, console yourself with the fact that you're reallyfueling up to dodge saber-toothed tigers. Chocolate: "It packs a multiple whammy. Chocolate has lots ofpharmacologic effects," says Duke University psychologist SusanSchiffman. That Hershey bar has tiny amounts of caffeine andanother mildly addictive stimulant, theobromine, plus a smidgen ofphenylethylamine, a possible chemical link to enhanced romanticfeelings. Coffee: Java junkies are made, not born. Bitter and harsh, thetaste of coffee is universally disliked by children, but we come tolike coffee usually as a result of pairing it with milk and sugar.Of course, it helps that we get a pharmacologic kick from thecaffeine. Major coffee drinkers display the classic features ofaddiction. When deprived, they get mild withdrawal symptoms:headache, lethargy, irritability. Crunchy, salty snacks: Back when we were all running around inanimal skins, salt, an essential nutrient, was hard to come by.Thus, as with sweets, we seem to this day to be genetically driven toseek the stuff.
Snacks such as chips, pretzels and popcorn may also satisfy ourneed to crunch, Duke University's Schiffman speculates. "They satisfyan urge to bite down on something during emotions like frustrationand boredom." Indeed, college students in Canadian studies byBernard Lyman reported they preferred crunchy foods when they wereangry, bored or frustrated. Soda: "Primarily, it's the carbonation," Schiffman says of thecraving for soda. "There is caffeine in colas, but the carbonation iswhat really turns on the nervous system. I've put catheters intopeople's arms and seen the increase in adrenaline in the bloodstreamafter carbonated beverages." Pizza: Topping the list for the men in Weingarten's survey waspizza. Why the recent national mania for pizza, which has surpassedhamburgersas the nation's favorite fast food?
"Multiple textures," says Schiffman. "It's crispy, crunchy andyet has a certain `elasticity' - it pulls back when you pull on it.Pizza is really like the banana split of entrees: You can enjoy somany different things in one product."
Texture aside, pizza is a one-stop shop of the things we crave.It's salty, packs a high fat content in the cheese and usuallycarries meat toppings. It's got carbohydrates and the spices and, asWeingarten puts it, "the real lure, that fantastic aroma. . . . "
You don't need to tell my Seattle friend that. He could smellit coming all the way from Chicago.
Prudent management of a community bank investment portfolio requires an approach mat starts with strategic analysis of the balance sheet, and men moves to tactical decision-making. This sort of top-down mediod first requires a look at the bank's asset/liability posture to identify exposures to interest rate risk. Once diis is done, the investment portfolio can then be used as a vehicle for managing diat risk. The Baker Group has always worked with client banks through a four-step process:
* First we look at the macro conditions of the economic environment and make observations as to where we are within the interest rate cycle.
* Second, we define the interest rate risk exposures of the bank's overall balance sheet through the use of a robust asset/liability management model.
* The third step is to identify relative value between and amongst the different bond market sectors that are pertinent to community bankers.
* The fourth and final step in the process is to drill down to the investment portfolio and do comparative analysis of individual securities to make selections that are appropriate for the unique characteristics of the bank.
Market conditions
Global financial markets have been in turmoil recendy. Remember that the sequence of events that led to the summertime market crisis began with a housing market bubble that reached its peak sometime last year. In the five-year period from 2001 to 2006, the average new home sales price soared from $167,000 to 263,000, a nearly 60 percent increase. This rapid home price appreciation led to a variety of behaviors, which were eventually to become major problems. Risky (and possibly fraudulent) lending, securitization and credit analysis practices became rampant during the final phase of the bubble as everybody wanted to cash in on a red hot housing market. The subsequent problems with subprime lending are well known and documented, but the bottom line is that markets are now acknowledging that risk is excessive. This reassessment of risk has caused spreads to widen dramatically and has brought about a powerful, ongoing flight to quality. This, as we shall see, can present some welcome opportunities for community bank portfolio managers to enhance performance and margin.
At the same time that the capital markets have seized up, we are now seeing some disturbing data on the U.S. domestic economy. The August unemployment report was particularly negative. Every component of the report indicates weakness in the labor market, which is significant because most economists have been pointing to jobs growth and income growth as the last hope for propping up an economy that is already suffering from a severe housing recession. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has made comments to indicate that the Fed will not ease in order to bail out the financial markets from subprime trouble, but that they will certainly provide stimulus to the economy, which now clearly needs help.
Interest rate risk
Simulation analysis based on data for U.S. community banks $50 million - $500 million in assets shows that, on average, this group of banks has clear risk exposures to falling rates. Based on the analysis, net interest margin can be expected to average 3.94 percent during the next 12 months if rates remain unchanged. Looking at moves of 200 basis points, margin would go up to 4.12 percent if rates rose, but it would fall to 3.69 percent if rates decline. Of course, the analysis is based on simulations from our call-report based A/L model (which we generally use for comparative and research purposes), not the more sophisticated model that we ordinarily use for clients. Nonetheless, the results are significant and meaningful for identifying broad trends.
Relative value
The market turbulence has been interesting to watch, but it has also resulted in rare investment opportunities for community banks. I like to think of these as margin repair opportunities. One noteworthy development is that we are suddenly seeing much higher relative yields on bonds with high grade credit quality, including those with the backing of the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury. New GNMA 15-year mortgage-backed securities, for example, have seen their yield advantage over five-year Treasury notes jump from 75 bps to as high as 140 bps recendy. Bank-qualified municipal bonds have also seen a substantial widening in yield spreads. In fact, the tax-equivalent yield spread on AAA bank-qualified 10-year bonds versus a durationequivalent treasury more man doubled from the levels that existed prior to the market upheaval. Nodiing has changed regarding the specific underlying credit fundamentals of the municipal issuers. It is just that the flight to quality has created enormous yield advantages for non-Treasury bonds.
This effect can be seen in other sectors as well. Yield spreads are higher even for simple bullet bonds issued by government agencies like the Federal Home Loan Bank, Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. At this writing, those bonds show spreads around 60 basis points; nearly triple the levels seen at the beginning of the year.
Security selection
In identifying and choosing specific securities for your bank, keep in mind that every bank is different with respect to its specific characteristics and needs. Some banks are loan driven; others rely more heavily on investments for income. Some banks are extremely well capitalized; others are run on diin capital. Each institution has its own loan and deposit customers and its own economic region, which will influence the type of business it does. All of these diings must be taken into consideration before developing an investment strategy.
As to the current environment, keep in mind that numerous factors play a role in the widening or tightening of yield spreads. An increase in market volatility will affect the value of call options on agency bonds and prepayment options embedded in mortgage-backed securities. Supply and demand conditions for municipals will always have some impact on municipal yield levels. Still, the behavior of the markets recendy and the extreme reassessment of risk valuations in the wake of all the turbulence has produced spread levels that are unlikely to persist.
Community banks have been pressured by declining margins ever since the Fed began its tightening campaign in mid-2004. We have seen our marginal cost of funds quadruple, while our yield on earning assets has barely moved. Now, however, we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. The yield curve from two years out (the so-called "coupon curve") is steep again after a oneyear inversion. Yield spreads are wider than they have been in years, and opportunities to restructure the bond portfolio, which may not have made sense several mondis ago, might be worth revisiting now because so much has changed in valuations and yields. As planning season approaches, survey the landscape and lay the groundwork for improving performance in the bond portfolio and the balance sheet overall. BN
[Sidebar]
"Survey the landscape and lay the groundwork for improving performance in the bond portfolio and the balance sheet overall."
[Author Affiliation]
Jeffrey F. Caughron is vice president/'senior portfolio strategist at The Baker Group.
Regional models may add value to global model results, but improvements depend essentially on the kind of application, experimental setup, analyzed model variable, and location.
H IGH-RESOLUTION CLIMATE MODELING. Background information. Atmospheric regional climate models (RCMs) serve a variety of purposes in climate research, such as process studies, weather forecasting, or long-term simulations. Such models include an atmospheric limited-area model combined with a description of the thermodynamics of the upper soil levels (Giorgi et al. 2001) and possibly other components of the Earth system (such as marginal seas and lakes). Reviews on regional climate modeling can be found in Foley (2010), Giorgi and Mearns (1999), Rummukainen (2010), and Wang et al. (2004).
RCMs are forced by time-variable conditions along the lateral atmospheric boundaries, sometimes also with large-scale constraints in the interior (von Storch et al. 2000; Miguez-Macho et al. 2004; Castro et al. 2005). These constraints are taken either from global model scenarios (Christensen and Christensen 2003) or from global reanalysis (Feser et al. 2001; Sotillo et al. 2005). They use high-resolution topographic details and can provide multiyear to multidecadal weather information for past or future scenarios (Jones et al. 1995, 1997; Salathe et al. 2008). An important utility of such multidecadal model data is to quantitatively describe hazards and changing conditions in the regional Earth system, such as ocean currents, sea level, storm surges, or ocean wave conditions and related threats [e.g., compilaton of coastal analyses and scenarios for the future obtained from numerical models (CoastDat); see Weisse et al. 2009].
In addition to prevailing large-scale conditions, local climate is influenced by regional aspects, such as local orography, land-sea contrast, and small-scale atmospheric features such as convective cells, which are not well represented in global climate models. Limited computer resources prevent the practical use of high-resolution models for global simulations of long time periods. An alternative is a global climate model with regional refinements (e.g., Déqué et al. 1994; Côté et al. 1998; McGregor and Dix 2008). The computer resources required to run such models are less than those for high-resolution global climate models, but are still considerable.
RCMs are therefore constructed for limited areas with a considerably higher resolution to describe regional-scale climate variability and change. During the simulations these RCMs are controlled by the global climate driving data via various mathematical routines. This technique is called dynamical downscaling. Denis et al. (2002) developed a rather idealized way of testing the downscaling ability of nested RCMs called the Big-Brother Experiment. Instead of using data from global reanalyses, forecasts, or climate models as forcing for the RCMs, this method computes a high-resolution reference climate and then degrades it by low-pass filtering. This filtered data is then used to drive the same limited-area model. Another method of downscaling, known as statistical downscaling, uses statistical relationships between observed small- and large-scale variables to derive climate at the regional scale from global climate model results. For a comparison of both methods we refer the reader to the work of Murphy (1999), for example.
Article objectives. One main purpose of regional climate modeling is to provide additional detail beyond the resolution of global reanalyses or global climate simulations. RCMs are also used for process studies or sensitivity experiments at the regional scale. In this article we will focus on the dynamical downscaling aspect. A large number of studies demonstrate that RCMs can realistically simulate weather and its statistics in comparison to observations (e.g., Früh et al. 2010; Kunz et al. 2010; Semmler and Jacob 2004). Other studies use dynamical downscaling of global climate model datasets with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations (e.g., Frei et al. 1998; Leung and Qian 2009; Rauscher et al. 2008). All of these studies implicitly assume a superiority of the RCM output over the driving global data, but usually do not explicitly prove this. The additional knowledge gained by the RCM is commonly termed "added value," but so far it has not been well explored and efforts in determining this added value are rare. There are even fewer studies on comparisons of RCM simulations with a geostatistical postprocessing of global model input data (e.g., Lo et al. 2008; Wood et al. 2004). Therefore, in this paper we will focus on direct RCM- global climate model comparisons.
In this article, efforts to determine such added value in case studies as well as in multidecadal simulations with different RCMs are summarized and evaluated. The simulations presented here mostly comprise "reconstructions," for example, simulations of the weather dynamics since 1948 until today of western Europe or the northwestern Pacific. Most of these simulations use a grid distance of about 50 km, have been constrained with spectral nudging (von Storch et al. 2000), and use global National Centers for Environmental Prediction-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR) reanalysis (hereafter the NCEP reanalysis; Kalnay et al. 1996) as forcing data.
The spectral nudging technique was used because in some cases RCMs can also deteriorate those scales for which they were not designed, namely, the global scales (e.g., Castro et al. 2005; Kanamitsu et al. 2010; von Storch et al. 2000). The technique makes sure that the global scales are not altered too much by the regional model, while allowing the regional scales to be developed exclusively by the regional model. Applications of spectral nudging led to encouraging results, which was also the case for ensemble studies (Weisse and Feser 2003).
ADDED VALUE. Global analysis or model data are assumed to reliably describe the dynamics of large-scale weather phenomena. Features resolved in numerical data are typically on the order of four grid boxes or above (Pielke 2002). For global reanalysis products, this means that phenomena smaller than about 500-800 km are not represented well. An RCM should give more realistic results at medium spatial scales, for example, at 600 km and less (e.g., an RCM with a maximum grid distance of 100 km, which can resolve weather phenomena with at least four to six grid points extension). Therefore, an added value of regional climate modeling is to be expected mainly at these regional dimensions (Laprise 2003). A new concept to define potential added value (regional climate statistics have to contain some fine spatialscale variability that would be absent on a coarser grid as a necessary condition for added value) was recently introduced by Di Luca et al. (2011). RCMs are very sensitive to the physical parameterizations that are chosen (Christensen et al. 2007), which will also influence the ability of the RCM to add value. For the sake of brevity this point is not addressed in this paper. In the following we will discuss some examples of studies in which the RCM is shown to add value compared to the forcing global climate model.
Near-surface wind speed. Winterfeldt and Weisse (2009) compared near-surface wind speeds of two regional models-the regional climate model (REMO; Jacob and Podzun 1997) and the Consortium for Small-Scale Modelling (COSMO) model in Climate Mode (CLM) (CCLM; see clm-community.eu; Rockel et al. 2008b; Steppeler et al. 2003)-and a global reanalysis (which served as input for the RCMs) of buoy data close to the coast and further off the coast in the North Sea. REMO was run with spectral nudging (SN-REMO) and without (STD-REMO), and CCLM was run with spectral nudging only. The nudged RCM was forced to simulate the large-scale features (which are assumed to be well resolved) of the driving fields correctly, while the dynamics at smaller scales were simulated solely by the RCM. The nudging method was applied only to horizontal wind components above 850 hPa (with increasing strengths toward higher model levels), where regional features become less important.
Figure 1 (right part) shows the location of the buoys used for the comparisons. Some of them were also used (assimilated) for the global reanalysis. The left part depicts the statistical measure of the Brier skill score (BSS) as a means of assessing the quality of model data compared to measurements. Positive values demonstrate an added value of the regional models over the global reanalysis. The spectrally nudged simulations always have a higher BSS than STD-REMO, and thus CCLM and SN-REMO reflect the measurements better than the regional model run the conventional way. While STD-REMO has negative BSS values at all stations apart from the coastal light ship Sandettie, SN-REMO and CCLM have positive BSS values for the four coastal light ships [Channel, Greenwich, Sandettie, and Deutsche Bucht (DeBu)]. Thus, global reanalysis wind speed time series are closer to the observations at all open-ocean stations (independent of their assimilation status), and even at the two coastal stations of K13 and Ems. The assimilation status of the coastal stations is of minor importance, because SN-REMO has positive BSS values for all three assimilated light ships in the English Channel, and one unassimilated coastal station only, namely Deutsche Bucht.
Winterfeldt et al. (2010) used satellite data to detect added value in dynamically downscaled wind speed fields. Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite data over northern Europe were compared to RCM (SN-REMO) near-surface wind speed. The BSS is displayed in Fig. 2. In large areas of the North Atlantic, the BSS is negative, indicating that dynamical downscaling does not add value there. The same holds for the interior of the Mediterranean, Baltic, and Black Seas.
Most mesoscale features such as land-sea wind circulation, or other orographically induced wind systems, do not occur over the open ocean but rather close to the coasts. Because these are some of the phenomena that a regional model may simulate more realistically than a global model, they can possibly show some added value of RCMs. The regional model does not add value over the open ocean because of the lack of orographic details and infrequent mesoscale phenomena there. It may even be worse than the reanalyses, which is reflected by the negative BSSs. While the reanalysis assimilates near-surface winds, Winterfeldt and Weisse (2009) showed that the negative BSS in the open ocean was independent of the assimilation of near-surface wind observations. It is instead caused by the inferior representation of largescale features, especially in time, combined with the low frequency of mesoscale features that drive the negative BSS scores in the open ocean. As indicated by positive BSS values, SN-REMO is able to add value in coastal areas, mainly for those with complex coastlines or topography. This is especially the case around the Iberian Peninsula, in the Mediterranean, English Channel, and Irish Sea; between Iceland and Greenland; and close to the coastlines of the Baltic and Black Seas. In these regions, where mesoscale phenomena are more common, the added value of the RCM is also clear (e.g., the mistral area can be identified by positive BSS values).
Sea level pressure, temperature, kinetic energy, and moisture flux. Regional models are mainly assumed to add detail at the specific scale for which they were constructed, which means that for added-value detection a scale separation may provide clearer results. By using spatial filters, model data can be separated into wavenumber ranges that should give the best improvement by either the global or the limited-area model. Scale-separated atmospheric model fields can be used to evaluate model variability, analyze comparisons or process studies, and locate added value.
The scale separation discussed here was performed using the digital filter described in Feser and von Storch (2005). The scale-dependent skill of a state-of-the-art RCM was examined by computing pattern correlation coefficients between spatially filtered global reanalyses, RCM simulations (with and without nudging of large scales), and an operational regional weather analysis as a reference. The operational analysis was provided by the German Weather Service [Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD); 0.5 ° × 0.5 ° grid distance], and in the following it is regarded as the "truth," even though the analysis is a blending of available observation data as well as model forecasts.
Figure 3 shows the time series of pattern correlation coefficients (PCCs; which are to be interpreted as a conventional correlation coefficient, but across space instead of time) for two sample seasons for near-surface pressure and temperature (Feser 2006). Shown are PCCs for full fields, low-pass-filtered (global scale), and bandpass-filtered (regional scale) fields. The dependency of the RCM results on the large-scale forcing is apparent in the pressure PCC; large differences between NCEP reanalyses and DWD analyses coincide with even greater differences between the RCM simulations and the DWD analyses for the unfiltered and low-pass-filtered fields. Thus, not surprisingly, both differences are reduced by applying the nudging technique. An improvement in the representation of large scales, as enforced by the nudging, is associated with an improvement of the simulation at the medium scales.
When a higher spatial resolution is less important, as is the case for the more uniform variable air pressure, the overall added value is small. The RCM stands little chance to improve the large-scale field because the only relevant factor available is the driving analysis. The situation is different for air temperature because the regional dynamics of this variable depend strongly on the high-resolution detail. Therefore, the RCM is capable of improving the simulation not only of the medium-scale temperature fields, but also of the full field. The PCCs of the medium-pass-filtered and unfiltered fields are always higher for the RCM simulations than for the global reanalyses. The largest added values are at the medium scales, where the regional models were expected to give the best results. For the PCC of the low-pass-filtered fields the conventional RCM simulation shows a deterioration compared to that of the NCEP reanalyses. In contrast, when nudging is applied to the large scales a small added value is obtained (note that the nudging is toward the global reanalyses, not toward the DWD analyses).
These findings are substantiated by Table 1, which lists the mean PCC PDWD(NCEP) for the full and anomaly fields (with deviations from the time mean fields) as well as mean differences between PCCs of the regional simulations and PDWD(NCEP). The table shows an improvement or deterioration by the RCMs over the global reanalyses. The mean improvement in sea level pressure (SLP) for the regional model is 1.4% for winter and 4.1% for summer with nudging of the large scales. No added value is provided for the standard RCM simulation. A similar result is obtained for the SLP anomalies (deviations from the long-term mean). The result is improved for air temperature. Simulations with the nudging of large scales give significant added value in both seasons for all spatial scales. These values are even larger for the anomalies. Without the nudging of large scales, no added value is obtained for large scales, but there is a significant increase for the medium-scale PCC.
Another example of improved temperatures in the RCM results was given by Prömmel et al. (2010), who showed that regionally simulated near-surface alpine temperatures display the largest added value over the forcing global reanalyses in regions with the most complex topography. Feldmann et al. (2008) compared precipitation fields over complex orographic terrain in southwest Germany, simulated by regional and global models, to the observations. The regional models added value to monthly climatological precipitation, especially during the summer months. The improvement was smaller in winter because of an overestimation of winter precipitation by the forcing global model and by the stronger coupling between the global and regional model arising because of more frequent baroclinic conditions with stronger cross-boundary flow.
Evidence for the added value of RCMs is also given in a dynamical downscaling study by Castro et al. (2005), who examined the value that was retained and added by a regional model in comparison to global NCEP data. The regional model successfully resolved the smaller-scale features, but on the large scales kinetic energy was lost, and therefore the value of the global reanalysis was not retained. This loss was reduced by applying an internal grid nudging (four-dimensional data assimilation), but at the same time the variability of kinetic energy for the regional scales was reduced.
A follow-up paper by Rockel et al. (2008a) repeated the experiments of Castro et al. (2005), but used another regional model (CCLM) with different resolutions and in addition to a spectral nudging technique. The change in kinetic energy (KE) and moisture flux convergence (MFC) was analyzed both on a large and small model domain and was compared to the global forcing model [40-yr European Centre for Medium- Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERA-40); see Uppala et al. 2005]. Figure 4 (left) depicts the vertical distributions of KE and MFC. It shows the great influence of the upper troposphere to the column-integrated KE and also shows that the largest contribution to the MFC comes from the planetary boundary layer because of the high moisture fluxes close to the surface.
The KE variability added by the RCM, compared with that from the global reanalyses, is presented in Fig. 4 (middle). Solid (global) and dashed (regional, 25-km grid distance) lines denote the wavenumbers of the physically resolved waves of the models according to the assumed 4 × Δx (4 × grid distance) limit between resolvable and nonresolvable spatial scales (Pielke 2002). For low wavenumbers the RCM retains approximately the same variability as the global reanalysis, and for higher resolutions larger added variability appears.
For the MFC (Fig. 4, right) the regional simulations show comparable results to the KE, but the variability for wavenumbers larger than the wavenumber of the physically resolved waves is highly enhanced. The dotted curves in Fig. 4 (middle and right) describe the variability added by the RCM for the large domain for both KE and MFC. The results differ in that the KE is less retained at the large scales on the large domain, while increased variability is visible for smaller scales. For MFC the opposite is true. Large-scale variability of the global reanalysis is retained almost completely, while added variability is reduced for smaller wave lengths. This result is valid for RCM simulations with a resolution of 25, 50, and 100 km. The small RCM domain includes mostly land points, whereas for the large domain mainly ocean grid points were added. Therefore, in the large domain the SST is more important, influencing humidity, and thus the MFC, and leading to the different behavior of the KE and MFC for large and small RCM areas. In this study, the added variability of RCM simulations compared to global reanalyses, especially for those spatial scales that are primarily resolved by the RCM, indicates an added value from the regional model.
Rockel et al. (2008a) also found that, depending on the model area and the degree of exchange via the lateral boundaries, success in simulating the "right" features at the observed time and location may depend on the constraint of the large-scale dynamics. This is in agreement with the results of Rinke and Dethloff (2000), who showed that in the circumpolar Arctic domain the lateral boundary control is weaker than that in model areas of similar domain sizes in midlatitude areas, which experience regular exchange (flushing) via the lateral boundaries of the prevalent eastward circulation. Another conclusion is that RCMs may develop systematic errors in the simulation of the large-scale flow if the boundary forcing is weak.
Polar lows and typhoons. RCMs allow for a more realistic description of mesoscale phenomena such as North Atlantic polar lows and East Asian typhoons (Zahn and von Storch 2008; Feser and von Storch 2008). Polar lows are mesoscale (200-1000 km) maritime, gale-producing storms in polar regions. In Fig. 5 mean sea level pressure (MSLP) and wind speed fields from analysis, reanalysis, and RCM data are shown at a time when a polar low has evolved in the North Atlantic. In the DWD analysis, the polar low is visible with closed isobars off the Norwegian coast, whereas in the NCEP field only a weak pressure trough exists. In the NCEP-driven climate mode RCM simulation, the polar low does develop more distinctly, but is shifted a bit in space and with a toohigh core pressure (Zahn et al. 2008).
In Fig. 6 the sea level pressure (isobars) and 10-m wind speed fields (colored patterns) were spatially filtered to analyze the polar low of Fig. 5 in more detail. A digital bandpass filter was used (Feser and von Storch 2005), which let weather phenomena sized between 200 and 600 km pass. This is the expected spatial scale of polar lows and therefore gives an indication whether the polar low appears in the data or not. In the filtered NCEP fields the bandpass filter shows some artificial sea level pressure isolines over the mountainous coast of Greenland, which is probably a result of orographic effects (note that MSLP needs to be extrapolated from model levels over mountainous regions). There is no anomaly over the ocean. For the DWD and CCLM data, however, the filter clearly visualizes the mesoscale anomalies as distinct minima in the filtered MSLP fields.
Although the RCM resolution still is too coarse to reproduce every dynamical detail of the polar low correctly, its added value is still large enough to allow for the development of a polar low climatology (Zahn and von Storch 2008) as well as a future projection of polar low frequency (Zahn and von Storch 2010). Such studies, which aim to assess long-term changes in polar low frequency, do not require every single case to be simulated correctly, but rather need their statistics to be realistically reproduced. Because the global data are too coarse to resolve polar lows in many cases, the RCM adds substantial value here in enabling an analysis of the polar low frequency on decadal time scales.
Another example of a mesoscale phenomenon is a typhoon. Feser and von Storch (2008) performed a feasibility study of regional typhoon modeling for a typhoon season in the western Pacific in which 12 typhoons were analyzed. Ten of those could be simulated both by the forcing global reanalysis as well as by a regional model. These individual typhoons were compared to the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) best-track data. These best-track data include all sorts of observational data, including satellites, and they are considered the truth for this comparison. The regional model was run with two resolutions, first with about 50 km × 50 km (0.5°), and in a doublenesting approach with about 18 km × 18 km (0.165°). Both simulations were spectrally nudged. The BSS was computed for SLP and for near-surface wind speeds. Positive values indicate that the regional model is closer to the best-track data than the global reanalysis, while negative values indicate more realistic values for the reanalysis.
In all typhoon cases, except for one named Ma-On (200422), the SLP development is better described by the regional model (CCLM) than by the reanalysis (NCEP). In 7 out of the 10 cases, the high-resolution (0.165°) CCLM performs better than the coarse (0.5°) CCLM. In three cases the improved resolution does not lead to results closer to best-track data in terms of SLP (Fig. 7 shows the BSS of CCLM versus NCEP). The result is not as good for wind speed (see Fig. 7). In terms of this variable, CCLM shows larger discrepancies compared to the best-track data than NCEP in 2 out of 10 cases. Usage of 0.165° grid sizes leads to results closer to the best track than the 0.5° grid sizes in only 2 out of 10 cases. In 8 of the 10 cases, the 0.5° CCLM performs better than the 0.165° CCLM.
The examples given above highlight some variables and features of regional models that were expected to provide added value compared to the forcing global model. There may be other RCM properties that also lead to added value and other regional model characteristics might also lead to a deterioration of global model results.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. Regional atmospheric models are tools used to achieve highresolution climate data from coarsely resolved global models. Regional models show higher detail for mountain ranges or coastal zones, more numerous and differing vegetation and soil characteristics, and a description of smaller-scale atmospheric processes, which lead to the formation of mesoscale weather phenomena. These RCM characteristics are believed to produce model output that is closer to reality than the more coarsely resolved global model data, both for reanalyses for hindcast studies, and for global scenario simulations.
It has been shown in this paper that dynamical downscaling does not add value to global reanalysis wind speed in open ocean areas, while it does for complex coastal areas. The regional model needs the higher-resolved orography or coastlines to achieve more realistic results than the already welldescribed global reanalyses for near-surface wind speed. Regional models show an added value in describing mesoscale variability compared to the driving global reanalysis, in particular, when the RCM is constrained at the large spatial scales. This is more obvious for variables, such as near-surface temperature, that are more heterogeneous than sea level pressure. A comparison of column-averaged KE and integrated MFC revealed enhanced variability for RCM simulations compared to a coarser global reanalysis. This added variability occurred mainly on those spatial scales that are best resolved by the regional model, indicating added value from the RCM. The location of mesoscale phenomena such as polar lows can be described realistically in RCM simulations, but not all polar lows can be found in the global reanalysis. Regional modeled typhoon core pressure values and the corresponding nearsurface wind speed values were, in general, closer to the reference best-track data than the forcing reanalyses.
We conclude that RCMs do indeed add value to global models for a number of applications, variables, and areas. If examined only at the regional scale, added value emerges very distinctly for many model variables, justifying the additional computational effort of RCM simulations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. The authors thank B. Gardeike for her help with the preparation of the figures for this paper. The climate version of the Lokal-Modell is the community model of the German climate research (COSMO-CLM; see www.clm-community.eu). The German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ) provided the computer hardware for the LAM simulations in the Regional Atmospheric Modelling project. The NCEP- NCAR reanalysis data were provided by the NCAR. The authors are grateful to ECMWF for using ERA-40 as boundary conditions for their regional climate model. The German Weather Service (DWD) allocated the operational analyses. The QuikSCAT level 2B data were provided by NASA's JPL (see http://podaac-www.jpl.nasa. gov). The best-track data were made available by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The authors thank the Meteorologische Zeitschrift (at www.borntraeger-cramer.de), Tellus, the International Journal of Climatology, Monthly Weather Review, and the Journal of Geophysical Research for permissions to reprint the figures for this article. The authors appreciate the thoughtful comments by the two anonymous reviewers and the careful proofreading of this paper by Dr. Lizzie S. R. Froude. This work is a contribution to the "Helmholtz Climate Initiative REKLIM" (Regional Climate Change), a joint research project of the Helmholtz Association of German research centres (HGF).
[Sidebar]
(top) Precipitation change in percentage 2070-2100 (IPCC scenario A1B) vs. 1961-1990, simulated with the RCM CCLM for summer. (bottom) Precipitation change in percentage 2070-2100 (IPCC scenario A1B) vs. 1961-1990, simulated with the RCM CCLM for winter. Images courtesy of Michael Böttinger, DKRZ (visualization) / CSC (simulation).
[Reference]
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[Author Affiliation]
AFFILIATIONS : Feser, Rockel, and von Storch*-Institute for Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany; Winterfeldt-GE Wind Energy, Salzbergen, Germany; Zahn-Environmental System Science Center, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
*ADDITIONAL AFFILIATION : KlimaCampus, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Frauke Feser, Max-Planck-Str. 1, Institute for Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany
E-mail: frauke.feser@hzg.de
The abstract for this article can be found in this issue, following the table of contents.
DOI:10.1175/2011BAMS3061.1
In final form 7 April 2011
© 2011 American Meteorological Society
Amoyal, Pierre, distinguished French violinist and teacher; b. Paris, June 22, 1949. He entered the Paris Cons, at the age of 10 and took the premier prix when he was only 12. In 1963 he won the Ginette Neveu Prize, in 1964 the Paganini Prize, and in 1970 the Enesco Prize. From 1966 to 1971 he pursued intensive studies with Heifetz in Los Angeles. In 1971 he made his debut as soloist in the Berg Concerto with Solti and the Orchestre de Paris, and thereafter was engaged as a soloist with major orchs. on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1985 he made his auspicious Carnegie Hall recital debut in N.Y. From 1977 to 1987 he taught at the Paris Cons., and then was on the faculty of the Lausanne Cons. In 1991 he founded, with Alexis Weissenberg, the Lausanne Summer Music Academy, which he subsequently served as artistic director. In addition to his appearances with orchs., he has given many recitals and has played much chamber music. His repertoire ranges from Bach to the contemporary era. His concerto repertoire embraces not only the standard works, but also scores by Schoenberg, Respighi, and Dutilleux.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire
