Identification

Title

Evaluation of WRF-forecasts over Siberia: Air mass formation, clouds and precipitation

Abstract

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model was run as a regional model without data assimilation or nudging (31 36h-simulations) for July and December 2005 over a limited area domain covering Siberia to examine weather formation in an air-mass source region. The WRF-results were compared to NCEP1/NCAR-reanalysis, International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project, Global Precipitation Climatology Centre and Canadian Meteorological Centre data to assess model performance and identify shortcomings. WRF is capable of predicting air-mass formation. Simulation errors are within the error range of other models. The timing of best/worst agreement differs among quantities depending on their sensitivity to systematic (model deficiencies) and/or unsystematic errors (e.g. initial conditions). Overall, the WRF-results agree better with reanalysis for July than December. WRF-results and reanalysis agree best under persistent high pressure and worst during frontal passages and transition from one pressure regime to another. In July, WRF provides smaller diurnal amplitudes of 2m-temperature with up to 5.4 K lower, and 3.5 K higher values at 0000 and 1200 UTC than the reanalysis. In December, WRF overestimates 2m-temperature by 1.4 K. WRF-temperatures excellently agree with the reanalysis from 700 hPa to 300 hPa. Except during frontal passages, wind-speed shows positive bias. Typically root-mean-square errors and standard deviation of errors of wind-speed (temperature) increase (decrease) with height. In December, WRF has difficulty predicting the position and strength of the polar jet. WRF underestimates cloudiness and snow-depth, but overestimates precipitation. In July, predicted convective precipitation is related strongly to boundaries between different land-cover. WRF-predicted snow-depth strongly correlates with terrain and misses the observed fine features.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d770826v

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

2012-09-01T00:00:00Z

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