Simulation of the Arid Climate of the Southern Great Basin Using a Regional Climate Model
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As part of the development effort of a regional climate model (RCM) for the southern Great Basin, this paper presents a validation analysis of the climatology generated by a high-resolution RCM driven by observations. The RCM is a version of the National Center for Atmospheric Research/Pennsylvania State University mesoscale model, version 4 (MM4), modified for application to regional climate simulation. Two multiyear simulations, for the periods 1 January 1982 to 31 December 1983 and 1 January 1988 to 25 April 1989, were performed over the western United States with the RCM driven by European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts analyses of observations. The model resolution is 60 km. This validation analysis is the first phase of a project to produce simulations of future climate scenarios over a region surrounding Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the only location currently being considered as a potential high-level nuclear-waste repository site. Model-produced surface air temperatures and precipitation were compared with observations from five southern Nevada stations located in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain. The seasonal cycles of temperature and precipitation were simulated well. Monthly and seasonal temperature biases were generally negative and largely explained by differences in elevation between the observing stations and the model topography. The model-simulated precipitation captured the extreme dryness of the Great Basin. Average yearly precipitation was generally within 30% of observed and the range of monthly precipitation amounts was the same as in the observations. Precipitation biases were mostly negative in the summer and positive in the winter. The number of simulated daily precipitation events for various precipitation intervals was within factors of 1.5–3.5 of observed. Overall, the model tended to overestimate the number of light precipitation events and underestimate the number of heavy precipitation events. At Yucca Mountain, simulated precipitation, soil moisture content, and water infiltration below the root zone (top 1 m) were maximized in the winter. Evaporation peaked in the spring after temperatures began to increase. The conclusion drawn from this validation analysis is that this high-resolution RCM simulates the regional surface climatology of the southern Great Basin reasonably well when driven by meteorological fields derived from observations.Keywords:
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Dryness
Hydrometeorology
This is a real-data Four Dimensional Data Assimilation (FDDA) study using MM5 in conjunction with West Texas Mesonet surface observations and ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) profile data collected by commercial aircraft during both en route and ascent/descent phases of their flights. The high-frequency mesonet data and ACARS wind and temperature profiles are ideal for testing the effects of FDDA on short-term mesoscale numerical weather prediction. The mesonet experiments involved 35 sites with an average horizontal spacing of about 30 km, while in the ACARS case ninety five profiles were used. Results indicated that nudging the MM5 model with the surface-based data over the relatively small area of the mesonet domain had limited impact on the model’s performance. In the ACARS runs, FDDA had long-lasting impact throughout the entire model atmosphere. FDDA appeared to improve the quantitative precipitation forecasting skill of MM5 and reduce slightly the model’s warm bias at the surface. The study suggests that ACARS has potential to significantly enhance our expertise in short-term mesoscale modeling and to support the need to rapidly and accurately adjust high-resolution meteorological model forecasts to real-time observations.
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In order to study the simulation efficiency of the mesoscale model on radiation fog, the mesoscale model MM5 was used to simulate the heavy radiation fog of 11-12 December 2003. Furthermore, aiming at explicit moisture schemes, radiation schemes and horizontal resolutions, three sensitivity experiments were performed. The simulated results show that the mesoscale model MM5 can reproduce the circulation, main features of the weather pattern and the heavy radiation fog. Especially, the occurrence, location and height of the fog are in accordance with the observation.
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Mesoscale numerical weather prediction model is the efficient way to the weather forecast. MM5 model is the most popular mesoscale model in the world. It is necessary to implement by means of high performance distributed parallel computation because of the large amount of calculation. This paper analyzed the sequential algorithm, studied the implement of the parallel algorithm, discussed some improvements, and presented some results of the experiment of MM5 implemented on the distributed parallel computer.
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Abstract. In the framework of AMPHORE, an INTERREG III B EU project devoted to the hydrometeorological modeling study of heavy precipitation episodes resulting in flood events and the improvement of the operational hydrometeorological forecasts for the prediction and prevention of flood risks in the Western Mediterranean area, a hydrometeorological model intercomparison has been carried out, in order to estimate the uncertainties associated with the discharge predictions. The analysis is performed for an intense precipitation event selected as a case study within the project, which affected northern Italy and caused a flood event in the upper Reno river basin, a medium size catchment in the Emilia-Romagna Region. Two different hydrological models have been implemented over the basin: HEC-HMS and TOPKAPI which are driven in two ways. Firstly, stream-flow simulations obtained by using precipitation observations as input data are evaluated, in order to be aware of the performance of the two hydrological models. Secondly, the rainfall-runoff models have been forced with rainfall forecast fields provided by mesoscale atmospheric model simulations in order to evaluate the reliability of the discharge forecasts resulting by the one-way coupling. The quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) are provided by the numerical mesoscale models COSMO and MM5. Furthermore, different configurations of COSMO and MM5 have been adopted, trying to improve the description of the phenomena determining the precipitation amounts. In particular, the impacts of using different initial and boundary conditions, different mesoscale models and of increasing the horizontal model resolutions are investigated. The accuracy of QPFs is assessed in a threefold procedure. First, these are checked against the observed spatial rainfall accumulations over northern Italy. Second, the spatial and temporal simulated distributions are also examined over the catchment of interest. And finally, the discharge simulations resulting from the one-way coupling with HEC-HMS and TOPKAPI are evaluated against the rain-gauge driven simulated flows, thus employing the hydrological models as a validation tool. The different scenarios of the simulated river flows – provided by an independent implementation of the two hydrological models each one forced with both COSMO and MM5 – enable a quantification of the uncertainties of the precipitation outputs, and therefore, of the discharge simulations. Results permit to highlight some hydrological and meteorological modeling factors which could help to enhance the hydrometeorological modeling of such hazardous events. Main conclusions are: (1) deficiencies in precipitation forecasts have a major impact on flood forecasts; (2) large-scale shift errors in precipitation patterns are not improved by only enhancing the mesoscale model resolution; and (3) weak differences in flood forecasting performance are found by using either a distributed continuous or a semi-distributed event-based hydrological model for this catchment.
Hydrometeorology
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Quantitative precipitation forecast
Hydrological modelling
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Mesoscale numerical model MM5(V3) is used to simulate the heavy rain process in Qidong,Jiangsu Province during 15th to 16th August 2002.Simulated results show that the genesis,development and rain gush of the mesoscale system are well described.The mesoscale vortex,and local circulation are analyzed,and the analysis results demonstrate that the mesoscale vortex played an import role in the occurrence of the heavy rain,and the presence of local circulation also favored the heavy rain.
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In this paper mesoscale rainstorm model MRM1 is reviewed, and daily precipitation forecast experiments and impact tests are conducted for late spring and early summer(June and July from the year 1998 to 2001) rainfall events. The forecast precipitation test is then compared with those of MM5 for the same period of the time, the results is shown that MRM1 is a preferable mesoscale rainstorm model in our country, having superiority over MM5 in heavy rainfall forecasting.
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In this paper,an exhaustive introduction is made for the main function,structure and principle of TERRAIN module, and its installation and operation are illustrated.At the mean time,in order to understand the module deeply,the comparative analysis is done to the handling for the different resolution terrain height and land-use characteristics.It shows that the high resolution terrain height and land-use characteristics can more really reflect the real feature of underlying surface and it is one of the base of mesoscale severe weather studies and numerical stimulation in the future.
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