Integrating remote sensing data with WRF model for improved 2-m temperature and humidity simulations in China

The default green vegetation fraction (GVF) in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model version 3.7.1 was derived between 1985 and 1990 from the 1990s Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) achieved from the NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), and its representation is deteriorating when used to simulate recent weather and climate events. In this study, we applied in WRF v3.7.1 the updated GVF estimated by the real-time NDVI of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data to provide a better representation of the prescribed surface GVF condition. A one-year simulation was carried out in China, and the simulated 2-m air temperature and specific humidity were compared between the WRF model control experiment that employs the default GVF data (WRF-CTL), the WRF simulations with updated GVF (WRF-MODIS), and the observations from 824 weather stations in China. Results are significantly improved for both the 2-m air temperature and the specific humidity by WRF-MODIS, which has effectively reproduced the observed pattern and increased the correlation coefficient between the model simulations and observations. The RMSE and bias of specific humidity are also reduced in WRF-MODIS. In general, the real-time MODIS-NDVI based GVF reflected the realistic increase of vegetation cover in China when comparing to the WRF default GVF, and also provided a more accurate seasonal variation for the simulated year of 2009. As a result, the WRF-MODIS simulation significantly improves its representation in the simulated 2-m air temperature and specific humidity, both in spatial distributions and seasonal variations, due to the GVF’s great contribution in modulating the coupled land-atmosphere interactions.     

同化卫星对地敏感通道微波亮温观测的模拟试验

借助快速辐射传输模式RTTOV v10（Radiative Transfer for TOVS）及其地表微波发射率模块,针对江淮区域晴天和雨天2类不同天气状况,采用理想试验手段,利用集合平方根滤波（En SRF）方法同化AMSU-A对地敏感第1通道的模拟亮温资料,探究改善中尺度模式WRF（Weather Research and Forecasting）初始场的可行性。结果表明：晴天时,同化对位温、水汽混合比及水平风速u和v整体上均有不同程度的改善,但不同高度改善程度有所差异,相对而言水平风场的改进程度最大,位温最小;有降水时,4个要素场整体改进程度与晴天时类似,但分析场误差的水平空间分布与晴天时不同。     

Simulation of the annual and diurnal cycles of rainfall over South Africa by a regional climate model

The capability of a current state-of-the-art regional climate model for simulating the diurnal and annual cycles of rainfall over a complex subtropical region is documented here. Hourly rainfall is simulated over Southern Africa for 1998–2006 by the non-hydrostatic model weather research and forecasting (WRF), and compared to a network of 103 stations covering South Africa. We used five simulations, four of which consist of different parameterizations for atmospheric convection at a 0.5 × 0.5° resolution, performed to test the physic-dependency of the results. The fifth experiment uses explicit convection over tropical South Africa at a 1/30° resolution. WRF simulates realistic mean rainfall fields, albeit wet biases over tropical Africa. The model mean biases are strongly modulated by the convective scheme used for the simulations. The annual cycle of rainfall is well simulated over South Africa, mostly influenced by tropical summer rainfall except in the Western Cape region experiencing winter rainfall. The diurnal cycle shows a timing bias, with atmospheric convection occurring too early in the afternoon, and causing too abundant rainfall. This result, particularly true in summer over the northeastern part of the country, is weakly physic-dependent. Cloud-resolving simulations do not clearly reduce the diurnal cycle biases. In the end, the rainfall overestimations appear to be mostly imputable to the afternoon hours of the austral summer rainy season, i.e., the periods during which convective activity is intense over the region.     

复杂地形区陆面资料对WRF模式模拟性能的影响

本文利用WRF（Weather Research and Forecasting）模式耦合Noah陆面过程模式,对比研究了使用不同精度陆面资料:WRF默认陆面资料、中国1 km分辨率数字高程模型数据集、2006年MODIS（MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer）土地利用和植被覆盖度资料,WRF模式对兰州地区冬季气象场模拟结果的差异。结果表明,近地面气温对陆面资料的精度非常敏感,而风场对陆面资料的精度不敏感,WRF模式对气温的模拟效果好于对风场模拟。采用高精度且时效性好的陆面资料后,WRF模拟的近地面气温准确率提高了15.8%,模拟的夜间气温改进幅度较白天大。陆面资料可影响整个边界层温度场分布,准确的陆面资料对提高WRF模式模拟近地面乃至整个边界层气象场至关重要。尽管风速模拟误差较大,但总体上WRF模式能较准确地模拟出研究区的风场演变特征。使用新的陆面资料后WRF模拟的风速误差略有减小,风向误差略有增加。干旱半干旱区冬季数值模拟需要注意土壤湿度初值和模式初始积分时刻对模拟结果的影响。     

Evaluation of the WRF-Lake Model over Two Major Freshwater Lakes in China

This paper evaluates the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting(WRF) model coupled with a lake scheme over the Lake Poyang and Lake Dongting regions. We choose several cases with different weather characteristics, including winter with/without precipitation and summer with/without precipitation, and conduct a series of experiments(without the lake model, with the default lake model, and with a calibrated lake model that adjusts the water absorption, extinction coefficients, and surface roughness length) for each case. The results show that the performance of the lake model is significantly affected by the weather conditions. For the winter with precipitation cases, the performance of the default lake model is even worse than without the lake model, but the calibrated lake model can obviously reduce the biases of 2-m temperature and dew-point temperature. Although the performance of the default and new calibrated models is intricate for other cases, the new calibrated model has prominent advantages for 2-m dew-point temperature. Moreover, a long-term simulation of five months also shows that the new calibrated coupled lake model performs better than the default one. These imply that the new calibrated coupled lake model is more suitable to be used in studies of the effects of Lake Poyang and Lake Dongting on regional weather and climate.     

Impacts of Land-Use Data on the Simulation of Surface Air Temperature in Northwest China

This study examines the impacts of land-use data on the simulation of surface air temperature in Northwest China by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. International Geosphere–Biosphere Program (IGBP) landuse data with 500-m spatial resolution are generated from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite products. These data are used to replace the default U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) land-use data in the WRF model. Based on the data recorded by national basic meteorological observing stations in Northwest China, results are compared and evaluated. It is found that replacing the default USGS land-use data in the WRF model with the IGBP data improves the ability of the model to simulate surface air temperature in Northwest China in July and December 2015. Errors in the simulated daytime surface air temperature are reduced, while the results vary between seasons. There is some variation in the degree and range of impacts of land-use data on surface air temperature among seasons. Using the IGBP data, the simulated daytime surface air temperature in July 2015 improves at a relatively small number of stations, but to a relatively large degree; whereas the simulation of daytime surface air temperature in December 2015 improves at almost all stations, but only to a relatively small degree (within 1°C). Mitigation of daytime surface air temperature overestimation in July 2015 is influenced mainly by the change in ground heat flux. The modification of underestimated temperature comes mainly from the improvement of simulated net radiation in December 2015.     

Intercomparison of the performance of MM5/WRF with and without satellite data assimilation in short-range forecast applications over the Indian region

The present study is conducted to verify the short-range forecasts from mesoscale model version5 (MM5)/weather research and forecasting (WRF) model over the Indian region and to examine the impact of assimilation of quick scatterometer (QSCAT) near surface winds, spectral sensor microwave imager (SSM/I) wind speed and total precipitable water (TPW) on the forecasts by these models using their three-dimensional variational (3D-Var) data assimilation scheme for a 1-month period during July 2006. The control (without satellite data assimilation) as well as 3D-Var sensitivity experiments (with assimilating satellite data) using MM5/WRF were made for 48 h starting daily at 0000 UTC July 2006. The control run is analyzed for the intercomparison of MM5/WRF short-range forecasts and is also used as a baseline for assessing the MM5/WRF 3D-Var satellite data sensitivity experiments. As compared to the observation, the MM5 (WRF) control simulations strengthened (weakened) the cross equatorial flow over southern Arabian sea near peninsular India. The forecasts from MM5 and WRF showed a warm and moist bias at lower and upper levels with a cold bias at the middle level, which shows that the convective schemes of these models may be too active during the simulation. The forecast errors in predicted wind, temperature and humidity at different levels are lesser in WRF as compared to MM5, except the temperature prediction at lower level. The rainfall pattern and prediction skill from day 1 and day 2 forecasts by WRF is superior to MM5. The spatial distribution of forecast impact for wind, temperature, and humidity from 1-month assimilation experiments during July 2006 demonstrated that on average, for 24 and 48-h forecasts, the satellite data improved the MM5/WRF initial condition, so that model errors in predicted meteorological fields got reduced. Among the experiments, MM5/WRF wind speed prediction is most benefited from QSCAT surface wind and SSM/I TPW assimilation while temperature and humidity prediction is mostly improved due to latter. The largest improvement in MM5/WRF rainfall prediction is due to the assimilation of SSM/I TPW. The assimilation of SSM/I wind speed alone in MM5/WRF degraded the humidity and rainfall prediction. In summary the assimilation of satellite data showed similar impact on MM5/WRF prediction; largest improvement due to SSM/I TPW and degradation due to SSM/I wind speed.     

Effect of 3DVAR assimilation of MODIS temperature and humidity profiles on the dynamic and thermodynamic features of three monsoon depressions over the Bay of Bengal

The three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR) technique in the advanced weather research and forecast model is used to study the impact of assimilating Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) retrieved temperature and humidity profiles on the dynamic and thermodynamic features for three monsoon depressions over the Bay of Bengal, India. For better understanding of the role of various physical processes in the evolution of monsoon depression, a detailed diagnostic study is performed on all the three depression cases. Numerical experiments were conducted in a system of two-way nested domains with a horizontal resolution of 36 and 12 km, respectively. The assimilation of MODIS data did improve the mean sea level pressure patterns and spatial distribution of rainfall patterns in all the three monsoon depression cases studied. Higher values of equitable threat score and lower bias values are seen consistently for the entire rainfall threshold range and for all the three depression cases with 3DVAR assimilation of MODIS temperature and humidity profiles. The current operational regional models in India do not ingest the MODIS temperature and humidity profiles and hence the present study is particularly relevant to the operational forecasting community in India in their ongoing efforts to improve weather forecasting over India.     

不同土地利用数据对WRF模拟新疆高温天气的影响

本研究在WRF(v3.8.1)中使用MODIS 21类和USGS24类土地利用类型数据,模拟了新疆2017年7月9日的极端高温天气,并在对模拟温度进行了高度订正的基础上,对比了两种土地利用数据对2m温度预报的影响。结果表明：(1)MODIS和USGS在新疆地区的土地利用差异主要在阿尔泰山、天山以及南疆西部的昆仑山北部海拔3000米以上的高山带,相应地,使用USGS模拟的这些高山带2m气温明显高于使用MODIS的模拟值,最高偏高12℃左右,是全疆范围内两者偏差的极大值。(2)就新疆区域而言,使用USGS模拟的2m气温整体优于使用MODIS的模拟值,且USGS模拟的2m温度整体低于MODIS模拟的2m温度。两者的均多在2℃以内。(3)在伊犁河谷,MODIS土地利用类型主要为“旱地/草地”,USGS为“草地”和“农田/林地马赛克”。代表站点2m温度模拟多以高温偏低、低温偏高为主。(4)与MODIS相比,USGS中哈密地区 “农田/林地马赛克”所占比重明显增大。哈密地区多数代表站点高、低温均以偏低为主。(5)站点温度的高度订正多以调低为主,调高幅度最大值为1.9℃,出现在伊犁河谷的尼勒克站,调整幅度明显大于MODIS和USGS模拟2m温度的差值,由此可见温度高度订正的必要性。     

集合均方根滤波同化地面自动站资料的技术研究

模式地形与观测站地形高度差异一直是地面资料同化面临的棘手问题,合理的同化方案能够将地面自动站资料有效的同化到中尺度数值模式中。本文首先采用Guo et al.(2002)的方案实现了在WRF模式中应用集合Kalman滤波方法同化地面自动站资料;然后对方案进行调整,对10 m高度风场、2 m高度位温、2 m高度露点和地表气压进行同化。通过均方根误差分析,模拟结果和同化增量分析来确定集合平方根滤波(EnSRF)同化地面自动站资料的有效性,并进行敏感性试验分析检验模式对各要素物理量的响应状况。结果表明:在EnSRF同化系统中应用Guo et al.(2002)的方案将地面自动站资料进行同化到数值模式中,能够部分改善模拟结果;地面观测资料(温度、湿度、风场、地表气压)中各物理量分别同化到数值模式都能影响18小时降水预报,但各物理量所起作用大小不同,其中对结果影响最大的是露点;使用位温、露点分别代替温度、比湿进行同化模拟效果更好,对自动站资料的同化也更加有效。     

Quantifying internal variability in a regional climate model: a case study for Southern Africa

This study aims at presenting various methodologies to separate the reproducible and irreproducible components of seasonal and intraseasonal climate variability simulated by a regional climate model over Southern Africa (south of 15°S), during an austral summer rainy season representative of the climatology. To that end, a 30-member ensemble simulation is performed using WRF laterally forced by the ERA40 reanalyses. Retained metrics include the analysis of weather regimes, signal-to-noise ratio, inter-member standard deviation and coefficient of variation. At the seasonal timescale, simulated rainfall amounts generally show a strong reproducibility, except in the subtropics and over the southern part of the Mozambique Channel. There, the number of rainy days is roughly similar in all members, while their average intensity varies extensively. At the intraseasonal timescale, the chronology of weather regimes, derived from the 500?hPa geopotential height, is highly reproducible. Rainfall variability is much less reproducible, especially in the central parts of the domain and near its outflow boundaries. Analysis of a South African regional index nonetheless indicates that both wet and dry spells tend to be accurately simulated and occur in phase in most members, demonstrating that they are embedded in large-scale variability patterns. Internal variability is lastly related to the lateral forcings along the domain boundaries. An objective classification of inflow/outflow mass fluxes allows identification of the recurrent synoptic configurations that favor strong or weak regional reproducibility. The main uncertainties concern the basic morphological features of rain-bearing systems (i.e., their spatial extension, location and propagation speed). Consequences for tropical-temperate interactions are then discussed.     

Scale dependency of regional climate modeling of current and future climate extremes in Germany

A 26-year simulation (1980–2005) was performed with the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model over the Volta Basin in West Africa. This was to investigate the ability of a climate version of WRF to reproduce present day temperature and precipitation over the Volta Basin. The ERA-Interim reanalysis and one realization of the ECHAM6 global circulation model (GCM) data were dynamically downscaled using two nested domains within the WRF model. The outer domain had a horizontal resolution of 50 km and covered the whole of West Africa while the inner domain had a horizontal resolution of 10 km. It was observed that biases in the respective forcing data were carried over to the RCM, but also the RCM itself contributed to the mean bias of the model. Also, the biases in the 50-km domain were transferred unchanged, especially in the case of temperature, to the 10-km domain, but, for precipitation, the higher-resolution simulations increased the mean bias in some cases. While in general, WRF underestimated temperature in both the outer (mean biases of ?1.6 and ?2.3 K for ERA-Interim and ECHAM6, respectively) and the inner (mean biases of ?0.9 K for the reanalysis and ?1.8 K for the GCM) domains, WRF slightly underestimated precipitation in the coarser domain but overestimated precipitation in the finer domain over the Volta Basin. The performance of the GCM, in general, is good, particularly for temperature with mean bias of ?0.7 K over the outer domain. However, for precipitation, the added value of the RCM cannot be overlooked, especially over the whole West African region on the annual time scale (mean biases of ?3% for WRF and ?8% for ECHAM6). Over the whole Volta Basin and the Soudano-Sahel for the month of April and spring (MAM) rainfall, respectively, mean bias close to 0% was simulated. Biases in the interannual variability in both temperature and precipitation over the basin were smaller in the WRF than the ECHAM6. High spatial pattern correlations between 0.7 and 0.8 were achieved for the autumn precipitation and low spatial correlation in the range of 0.0 and 0.2 for the winter season precipitation over the whole basin and all the three belts over the basin.     

Effect of implementing ecosystem functional type data in a mesoscale climate model

In this paper, we introduce a new concept of land-surface state representation for southern South America, which is based on "functional" attributes of vegetation, and implement a new land-cover (Ecosystem Functional Type, hereafter EFT) dataset in the Weather and Research Forecasting (WRF) model. We found that the EFT data enabled us to deal with functional attributes of vegetation and time-variant features more easily than the default land-cover data in the WRF. In order to explore the usefulness of the EFT data in simulations of surface and atmospheric variables, numerical simulations of the WRF model, using both the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the EFT data, were conducted over the La Plata Basin in South America for the austral spring of 1998 and compared with observations. Results showed that the model simulations were sensitive to the lower boundary conditions and that the use of the EFT data improved the climate simulation of 2-m temperature and precipitation, implying the need for this type of information to be included in numerical climate models.     

金塔绿洲大气边界层特征的数值模拟研究

利用美国NCAR中心的天气研究与预报模式WRF(weather Research and Forecast Model),对金塔绿洲的环流场、温度场及湿度场结构及其日变化进行了较为全面细致的模拟研究,WRF模式很好地模拟出了绿洲一沙漠环流的日变化特征和这种局地热力环流的空间结构,模拟再现了绿洲“冷岛效应”和邻近绿洲的沙漠“逆湿”等边界层特征．模拟还发州了白天绿洲湿度场“凹型槽,,式分布的特征。     

Predictability of the Meteorological Conditions Favourable to Radiative Fog Formation During the 2011 ParisFog Campaign

Radiative fog formation is a complex phenomenon involving local physical and microphysical processes that take place when particular meteorological conditions occur. This study aims at quantifying the ability of a regional numerical weather model to analyze and forecast the conditions favourable to radiative fog formation at an instrumental site in the Paris area. Data from the ParisFog campaign have been used in order to quantify the meteorological conditions favorable to radiative fog formation (pre-fog conditions) by setting threshold values on the key meteorological variables driving this process: 2-m temperature tendency, 10-m wind speed, 2-m relative humidity and net infrared flux. Data from the ParisFog observation periods of November 2011 indicate that use of these thresholds leads to the detection of 87 % of cases in which radiative fog formation was observed. In order to evaluate the ability of a regional weather model to reproduce adequately these conditions, the same thresholds are applied to meteorological model fields in both analysis and forecast mode. It is shown that, with this simple methodology, the model detects 74 % of the meteorological conditions finally leading to observed radiative fog, and 48 % 2 days in advance. Finally, sensitivity tests are conducted in order to evaluate the impact of using larger time or space windows on the forecasting skills.     

Impact of refined land surface properties on the simulation of a heavy convective rainfall process in the Pearl River Delta region,China

The location and occurrence time of convective rainfalls have attracted great public concern as they can lead to terrible disasters. However, the simulation results of convective rainfalls in the Pearl River Delta region often show significant discrepancies from the observations. One of the major causes lies in the inaccurate geographic distribution of land surface properties used in the model simulation of the heavy precipitation. In this study, we replaced the default soil and vegetation datasets of Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with two refined datasets, i.e. the GlobCover 2009 (GLC2009) land cover map and the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) soil texture, to investigate the impact of vegetation and soil on the rainfall patterns. The result showed that the simulation patterns of convective rainfalls obtained from the coupled refined datasets are more consistent with the observations than those obtained from the default ones. By using the coupled refined land surface datasets, the overlap ratio of high precipitation districts reached 36.3% with a variance of 28.5 km from the observed maximum rainfall position, while those of the default United States Geological Survey (USGS) dataset and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) dataset are 17.0%/32.8 km and 24.9%/49.0 km, respectively. The simulated total rainfall amount and occurrence time using the coupled refined datasets are the closest to the observed peak values. In addition, the HWSD soil data has improved the accuracy of the simulated precipitation amount, and the GLC2009 land cover data also did better in catching the early peak time.     

Numerical simulation of the impact of land cover change on regional climate in China

Land use and land cover change (LUCC) can modify the physical and thermodynamic characteristics of the land surface, including surface roughness, albedo, and vegetation fraction, among others. These direct changes can result in a series of impacts on regional climate. In this paper, the simulated results over China under the scenario of LUCC using weather research and forecasting model are presented. The period for the simulation is from December 2006 to December 2011. Two experiments are initialized by the LUCC datasets derived from the MODIS data of 2001 and 2008, respectively. The results show that the LUCC in most areas of China reduces the surface albedo and increases the surface temperature. Especially in the Hetao Plain, the magnitude of increased surface temperature is above 0.5 °C in winter, and the increase in winter is more obvious than in summer. The precipitation in the Hetao Plain increases. The sensible heat in most parts of East China is reduced, while the latent heat is increased in most areas of China.     

Fuzzy logic based melting layer recognition from 3 GHz dual polarization radar: appraisal with NWP model and radio sounding observations

The advent of polarimetry makes it possible to categorize hydrometeor inferences more accurately by providing detailed information of the scattering properties. In light of this, the authors have developed a fuzzy logic based system for the recognition of melting layer in the atmosphere. The fuzzy system is based on characterizing melting layer scatterers from non-melting scatterers using five crisp inputs, namely, horizontal reflectivity (Z _H), differential reflectivity (Z _DR), co-polar correlation coefficient (ρ _HV), linear depolarization ratio (LDR) and height of radar measurements (H). For the implementation of melting layer recognition, the study employs the dual polarized signatures from the 3 GHz Chilbolton Advanced Meteorological Radar (CAMRA). Furthermore, a simple but effective averaging procedure for melting level estimation from a volume RHI scan is proposed. The proposed scheme has been evaluated with Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model simulated and radio soundings retrieved melting level height over a total of 84 RHI scan-based bright band cases. The results confirm that the estimated melting level heights from the proposed method are in good agreement with the WRF model and radio sounding observations. The 3 GHz radar melting level height estimates correspond with the R ² and RMSE values of 0.92 and 0.24 km, respectively, when compared to the radio soundings, and 0.93 and 0.21 km, respectively, when compared to the WRF model results. Moreover, the related R ² and RMSE values are reported as 0.93 and 0.22 km respectively between the WRF and radio soundings retrievals. This implies that the downscaled WRF modelled melting level height may also be used for operational or research needs.     

A MODELING STUDY OF INHOMOGENEOUS COASTAL GALES ASSOCIATED WITH THE LANDFALL OF TYPHOON SOUDELOR (2015)

In this study, coastal gales and rainfall attributed to the landfall of Typhoon Soudelor (2015) are analyzed based on observational dense automatic weather stations data, advanced scatterometer-retrieved 10-m ocean surface wind data and simulations using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. This study focuses on gale bands in the right-front quadrant of the typhoon and associated coastal winds over Zhejiang and Fujian Provinces in China before the landfall of the typhoon. The results are summarized as follows. (1) 10-m surface wind data from automatic weather stations over land and islands, advanced scatterometer-retrieved 10-m ocean surface wind data, and the WRF simulation indicate similar mesoscale offshore gales. (2) The model simulation with a 333-m grid mesh indicates a gale zone over the right-front quadrant of the typhoon; the gale is “broken” over the coastal areas, and formed an inhomogeneous gale band. (3) The model-simulated winds agree well with the island observations. (4) Non-uniform gales over boundary layers result in horizontal wind-speed gradients and strong convergence that favors the development of convection and the maintenance of ocean surface gales.