Evaluation of the Weather Research & Forecasting Model as a Regional Climate Model over the Western US
Location
Eccles Conference Center
Event Website
http://water.usu.edu/
Start Date
4-20-2010 1:00 PM
End Date
4-20-2010 1:20 PM
Description
Projecting climate for the western United States has typically involved the use of coarse resolution global models. This is problematic over such complex terrain as the global models are unable to resolve small scale features. The solution is to use a Regional Climate Model (RCM) with much higher spatial resolution. RCMs are typically able to produce better near surface temperature and precipitation simulations when compared to global models. In recent years the Weather Research & Forecasting (WRF) model has been adapted to fulfill such a role. We used WRF to simulate climate over the western United States for the year 1999. We initialized WRF with output generated by the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) version 3.0 at approximately 1.4° resolution. We then compared the results with the initial CCSM data, as well as with radar data and surface observations. We evaluated the performance of WRF compared to the coarse scale CCSM with respect to the observational data in terms of surface temperature, precipitation, runoff, and snowpack.
Evaluation of the Weather Research & Forecasting Model as a Regional Climate Model over the Western US
Eccles Conference Center
Projecting climate for the western United States has typically involved the use of coarse resolution global models. This is problematic over such complex terrain as the global models are unable to resolve small scale features. The solution is to use a Regional Climate Model (RCM) with much higher spatial resolution. RCMs are typically able to produce better near surface temperature and precipitation simulations when compared to global models. In recent years the Weather Research & Forecasting (WRF) model has been adapted to fulfill such a role. We used WRF to simulate climate over the western United States for the year 1999. We initialized WRF with output generated by the Community Climate System Model (CCSM) version 3.0 at approximately 1.4° resolution. We then compared the results with the initial CCSM data, as well as with radar data and surface observations. We evaluated the performance of WRF compared to the coarse scale CCSM with respect to the observational data in terms of surface temperature, precipitation, runoff, and snowpack.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/runoff/2010/AllAbstracts/17