Sensitivity of simulated short-range high-temperature weather to land surface schemes by WRF

The simulations of a heat wave occurring in southern Yangtze-Huaihe valley and southern China during late July,2003 were conducted to examine the sensitivity of simulated surface air temperature(SAT) to different land surface schemes(LSSs) using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model(WRF) Version 2.2 in the short-range mode for 24-h integrations.Initial and boundary conditions employed a National Centers for Environmental Prediction(NCEP) analysis.The results showed that,overall,simulated high-temperature weather is sensitive to different LSSs.Large differences in simulated SAT intensity,threat score,and simulated error under different schemes are identified clearly.In addition,some systematic differences are also in-duced by the LSSs.In terms of threat score from the three LSSs,SLAB is the best,and RUC is better than NOAH.SLAB gives the lowest absolute error for area-averaged SAT,and tends to depict the western Pacific subtropical high with the east-ernmost position at low levels.The LSSs modify the simulated SAT,primarily via the transfer of sensible heat from the land surface to the atmosphere.The physical mechanism of the positive feedback between atmospheric circulation and the SAT is unimportant,with"negative"feedback over most of the simulated areas.This study emphasizes the importance of improving LSSs in SAT forecasting by numerical models.

Sensitivity Study of the RegCM4’s Surface Schemes in the Simulations of West Africa Climate

Two simulations of five years (2003-2007) were conducted with the Regional Climate models RegCM4, one coupled with Land surface models BATS and the other with CLM4.5 over West Africa, where simulated air temperature and precipitation were analyzed. The purpose of this study is to assess the performance of RegCM4 coupled with the new CLM4.5 Land surface scheme and the standard one named BATS in order to find the best configuration of RegCM4 over West African. This study could improve our understanding of the sensitivity of land surface model in West Africa climate simulation, and provide relevant information to RegCM4 users. The results show fairly realistic restitution of West Africa’s climatology and indicate correlations of 0.60 to 0.82 between the simulated fields (BATS and CLM4.5) for precipitation. The substitution of BATS surface scheme by CLM4.5 in the model configuration, leads mainly to an improvement of precipitation over the Atlantic Ocean, however, the impact is not sufficiently noticeable over the continent. While the CLM4.5 experiment restores the seasonal cycles and spatial distribution, the biases increase for precipitation and temperature. Positive biases already existing with BATS are amplified over some sub-regions. This study concludes that temporal localization (seasonal effect), spatial distribution (grid points) and magnitude of precipitation and temperature (bias) are not simultaneously improved by CLM4.5. The introduction of the new land surface scheme CLM4.5, therefore, leads to a performance of the same order as that of BATS, albeit with a more detailed formulation.