An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica
Despite the recent significant climatic changes observed over West Antarctica, which include large warming in central West Antarctica and accelerated ice loss, adequate validation of regional simulations of meteorological variables are rare for this region. To address this gap, results from a recent...
Published in: | Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres |
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ftnerc:oai:nora.nerc.ac.uk:511577 2023-05-15T13:49:32+02:00 An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica Deb, Pranab Orr, Andrew Hosking, J. Scott Phillips, Tony Turner, John Bannister, Daniel Pope, James O. Colwell, Steve 2016-02 text http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/511577/ https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/511577/1/Deb_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research__Atmospheres.pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/2015JD024037/full en eng Wiley https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/511577/1/Deb_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research__Atmospheres.pdf Deb, Pranab; Orr, Andrew orcid:0000-0001-5111-8402 Hosking, J. Scott orcid:0000-0002-3646-3504 Phillips, Tony orcid:0000-0002-3058-9157 Turner, John orcid:0000-0002-6111-5122 Bannister, Daniel; Pope, James O. orcid:0000-0001-8945-4209 Colwell, Steve. 2016 An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica. Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, 121 (4). 1532-1548. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD024037 <https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD024037> Publication - Article PeerReviewed 2016 ftnerc https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD024037 2023-02-04T19:42:01Z Despite the recent significant climatic changes observed over West Antarctica, which include large warming in central West Antarctica and accelerated ice loss, adequate validation of regional simulations of meteorological variables are rare for this region. To address this gap, results from a recent version of the Polar Weather Research and Forecasting model (Polar WRF) covering West Antarctica at a high horizontal resolution of 5 km were validated against near-surface meteorological observations. The model employed physics options that included the Mellor-Yamada-Nakanishi-Niino (MYNN) boundary layer scheme, the WRF Single Moment 5-Class cloud microphysics scheme, the new version of the Rapid Radiative Transfer Model for both shortwave and longwave radiation, and the Noah land surface model. Our evaluation finds this model to be a useful tool for realistically capturing the near-surface meteorological conditions. It showed high skill in simulating surface pressure (correlation ≥0.97), good skill for wind speed with better correlation at inland sites (0.7-0.8) compared to coastal sites (0.3-0.6), generally good representation of strong wind events, and good skill for temperature in winter (correlation ≥0.8). The main shortcomings of this configuration of Polar WRF are an occasional failure to properly represent transient cyclones and their influence on coastal winds, an amplified diurnal temperature cycle in summer, and a general tendency to underestimate the wind speed at inland sites in summer. Additional sensitivity studies were performed to quantify the impact of the choice of boundary layer scheme and surface boundary conditions. It is shown that the model is most sensitive to the choice of boundary layer scheme, with the representation of the temperature diurnal cycle in summer significantly improved by selecting the Mellor-Yamada-Janjic boundary layer scheme. By contrast, the model results showed little sensitivity to whether the horizontal resolution was 5 or 15 km. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctica Antarctica Journal West Antarctica Natural Environment Research Council: NERC Open Research Archive West Antarctica Mellor ENVELOPE(-114.944,-114.944,60.714,60.714) Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 121 4 1532 1548 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Natural Environment Research Council: NERC Open Research Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftnerc |
language |
English |
description |
Despite the recent significant climatic changes observed over West Antarctica, which include large warming in central West Antarctica and accelerated ice loss, adequate validation of regional simulations of meteorological variables are rare for this region. To address this gap, results from a recent version of the Polar Weather Research and Forecasting model (Polar WRF) covering West Antarctica at a high horizontal resolution of 5 km were validated against near-surface meteorological observations. The model employed physics options that included the Mellor-Yamada-Nakanishi-Niino (MYNN) boundary layer scheme, the WRF Single Moment 5-Class cloud microphysics scheme, the new version of the Rapid Radiative Transfer Model for both shortwave and longwave radiation, and the Noah land surface model. Our evaluation finds this model to be a useful tool for realistically capturing the near-surface meteorological conditions. It showed high skill in simulating surface pressure (correlation ≥0.97), good skill for wind speed with better correlation at inland sites (0.7-0.8) compared to coastal sites (0.3-0.6), generally good representation of strong wind events, and good skill for temperature in winter (correlation ≥0.8). The main shortcomings of this configuration of Polar WRF are an occasional failure to properly represent transient cyclones and their influence on coastal winds, an amplified diurnal temperature cycle in summer, and a general tendency to underestimate the wind speed at inland sites in summer. Additional sensitivity studies were performed to quantify the impact of the choice of boundary layer scheme and surface boundary conditions. It is shown that the model is most sensitive to the choice of boundary layer scheme, with the representation of the temperature diurnal cycle in summer significantly improved by selecting the Mellor-Yamada-Janjic boundary layer scheme. By contrast, the model results showed little sensitivity to whether the horizontal resolution was 5 or 15 km. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Deb, Pranab Orr, Andrew Hosking, J. Scott Phillips, Tony Turner, John Bannister, Daniel Pope, James O. Colwell, Steve |
spellingShingle |
Deb, Pranab Orr, Andrew Hosking, J. Scott Phillips, Tony Turner, John Bannister, Daniel Pope, James O. Colwell, Steve An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica |
author_facet |
Deb, Pranab Orr, Andrew Hosking, J. Scott Phillips, Tony Turner, John Bannister, Daniel Pope, James O. Colwell, Steve |
author_sort |
Deb, Pranab |
title |
An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica |
title_short |
An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica |
title_full |
An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica |
title_fullStr |
An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica |
title_full_unstemmed |
An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica |
title_sort |
assessment of the polar weather research and forecast (wrf) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over west antarctica |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/511577/ https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/511577/1/Deb_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research__Atmospheres.pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/2015JD024037/full |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-114.944,-114.944,60.714,60.714) |
geographic |
West Antarctica Mellor |
geographic_facet |
West Antarctica Mellor |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica Antarctica Journal West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica Antarctica Journal West Antarctica |
op_relation |
https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/511577/1/Deb_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Geophysical_Research__Atmospheres.pdf Deb, Pranab; Orr, Andrew orcid:0000-0001-5111-8402 Hosking, J. Scott orcid:0000-0002-3646-3504 Phillips, Tony orcid:0000-0002-3058-9157 Turner, John orcid:0000-0002-6111-5122 Bannister, Daniel; Pope, James O. orcid:0000-0001-8945-4209 Colwell, Steve. 2016 An assessment of the Polar Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model representation of near-surface meteorological variables over West Antarctica. Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, 121 (4). 1532-1548. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD024037 <https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD024037> |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD024037 |
container_title |
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres |
container_volume |
121 |
container_issue |
4 |
container_start_page |
1532 |
op_container_end_page |
1548 |
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1766251507022299136 |