MODELING PRECIPITATION OVER COMPLEX TERRAIN IN ICELAND

• Main Authors: Tómas Jóhannesson, Oddur Sigurðsson, Helgi Björnsson, Finnur Pálsson
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.539.3433; http://www.vedur.is/media/vedurstofan/utgafa/greinargerdir/2009/73_crochet.pdf

An orographic precipitation model has been used to estimate the spatial distribution of precipitation in Iceland with a horizontal resolution of 1 km and time scales ranging from a day over the period 1958 to 2006. This model combines airflow dynamics with a simple parameterization of cloud physics (cloud water formation time, hydrometeor fallout time, condensed water advection and lee-side evaporation). The model is forced with large-scale atmospheric variables taken from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) (Re-)analysis and the model parameters have been optimized using rain-gauge and glaciological data. The results suggest that the model behaves reasonably well in the complex terrain of Iceland and offers a suitable solution for providing detailed estimates of precipitation for various purposes ranging from hydrological and glaciological applications to climatology.