Identification

Title

The Assimilation of GPS Radio Occultation Data and its Impact on Rainfall Prediction along the West Coast of India during Monsoon 2002

Abstract

In this study, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-2.0.3.1) model with three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR) was utilized to study a heavy rainfall event along the west coast of India with and without the assimilation of GPS occultation refractivity soundings in the monsoon period of 2002. The WRF model is a next-generation mesoscale numerical weather prediction system designed to serve both operational forecasting and atmospheric research communities. The Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) refractivity data, processed by UCAR, were obtained from the CHAMP and SAC-C missions. This study investigates the impact of thirteen GPS occultation refractivity soundings only, as assimilated into the WRF model with 3DVAR, on the rainfall prediction over the western coastal mountain of India. The model simulation, with the finest resolution of 10 km, was in good agreement with rainfall observations, up to 72-h forecast. There are some subtle but important differences in predicted rainfalls between the control run CN (without the assimilation of refractivity soundings) and G13 (with the assimilation of thirteen GPS RO soundings). In general, the assimilation run G13 gives a better prediction in terms of both rainfall locations and amounts at later times. The moisture increments were analyzed at the initial and forecast times to assess the impact of GPS RO data assimilation. The results indicate that remote soundings in the forcing region could have significant impacts on distant downstream regions. It is anticipated, based on this study, that considerably occultation soundings available from the six-satellite constellation of FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC would have even more significant impacts on weather prediction in this region.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7pn96xw

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2007-09-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact