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Title: Modifications to WRFs dynamical core to improve the treatment of moisture for large-eddy simulations

Abstract

Yamaguchi and Feingold (2012) note that the cloud fields in their large-eddy simulations (LESs) of marine stratocumulus using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model exhibit a strong sensitivity to time stepping choices. In this study, we reproduce and analyze this sensitivity issue using two stratocumulus cases, one marine and one continental. Results show that (1) the sensitivity is associated with spurious motions near the moisture jump between the boundary layer and the free atmosphere, and (2) these spurious motions appear to arise from neglecting small variations in water vapor mixing ratio (qv) in the pressure gradient calculation in the acoustic sub-stepping portion of the integration procedure. We show that this issue is remedied in the WRF dynamical core by replacing the prognostic equation for the potential temperature θ with one for the moist potential temperature θm=θ(1+1.61qv), which allows consistent treatment of moisture in the calculation of pressure during the acoustic sub-steps. With this modification, the spurious motions and the sensitivity to the time stepping settings (i.e., the dynamic time step length and number of acoustic sub-steps) are eliminated in both of the example stratocumulus cases. In conclusion, this modification improves the applicability of WRF for LES applications, and possiblymore » other models using similar dynamical core formulations, and also permits the use of longer time steps than in the original code.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1]
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  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  2. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
  3. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
OSTI Identifier:
1232699
Report Number(s):
BNL-111604-2015-JA
Journal ID: ISSN 1942-2466; R&D Project: 2016-BNL-EE630EECA-Budg; KP1701000
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC00112704
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 1942-2466
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Citation Formats

Xiao, Heng, Endo, Satoshi, Wong, May, Skamarock, William C., Klemp, Joseph B., Fast, Jerome D., Gustafson, Jr., William I., Vogelmann, Andrew, Wang, Hailong, Liu, Yangang, and Lin, Wuyin. Modifications to WRFs dynamical core to improve the treatment of moisture for large-eddy simulations. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1002/2015MS000532.
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Xiao, Heng, Endo, Satoshi, Wong, May, Skamarock, William C., Klemp, Joseph B., Fast, Jerome D., Gustafson, Jr., William I., Vogelmann, Andrew, Wang, Hailong, Liu, Yangang, & Lin, Wuyin. Modifications to WRFs dynamical core to improve the treatment of moisture for large-eddy simulations. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015MS000532
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Xiao, Heng, Endo, Satoshi, Wong, May, Skamarock, William C., Klemp, Joseph B., Fast, Jerome D., Gustafson, Jr., William I., Vogelmann, Andrew, Wang, Hailong, Liu, Yangang, and Lin, Wuyin. Thu . "Modifications to WRFs dynamical core to improve the treatment of moisture for large-eddy simulations". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015MS000532. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1232699.
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@article{osti_1232699,
title = {Modifications to WRFs dynamical core to improve the treatment of moisture for large-eddy simulations},
author = {Xiao, Heng and Endo, Satoshi and Wong, May and Skamarock, William C. and Klemp, Joseph B. and Fast, Jerome D. and Gustafson, Jr., William I. and Vogelmann, Andrew and Wang, Hailong and Liu, Yangang and Lin, Wuyin},
abstractNote = {Yamaguchi and Feingold (2012) note that the cloud fields in their large-eddy simulations (LESs) of marine stratocumulus using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model exhibit a strong sensitivity to time stepping choices. In this study, we reproduce and analyze this sensitivity issue using two stratocumulus cases, one marine and one continental. Results show that (1) the sensitivity is associated with spurious motions near the moisture jump between the boundary layer and the free atmosphere, and (2) these spurious motions appear to arise from neglecting small variations in water vapor mixing ratio (qv) in the pressure gradient calculation in the acoustic sub-stepping portion of the integration procedure. We show that this issue is remedied in the WRF dynamical core by replacing the prognostic equation for the potential temperature θ with one for the moist potential temperature θm=θ(1+1.61qv), which allows consistent treatment of moisture in the calculation of pressure during the acoustic sub-steps. With this modification, the spurious motions and the sensitivity to the time stepping settings (i.e., the dynamic time step length and number of acoustic sub-steps) are eliminated in both of the example stratocumulus cases. In conclusion, this modification improves the applicability of WRF for LES applications, and possibly other models using similar dynamical core formulations, and also permits the use of longer time steps than in the original code.},
doi = {10.1002/2015MS000532},
journal = {Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems},
number = ,
volume = 7,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Oct 29 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Thu Oct 29 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}
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    The Impact of Variable Land‐Atmosphere Coupling on Convective Cloud Populations Observed During the 2016 HI‐SCALE Field Campaign
    journal, August 2019

    • Fast, Jerome D.; Berg, Larry K.; Feng, Zhe
    • Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Vol. 11, Issue 8
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