The spatiotemporal variability of precipitation over the Himalaya: evaluation of one-year WRF model simulation
- The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used to simulate the spatiotemporal distribution of precipitation over central Asia over the year April 2005 through March 2006. Experiments are performed at 6.7 km horizontal grid spacing, with an emphasis on winter and summer precipitation over the Himalaya. The model and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission show a similar inter-seasonal cycle of precipitation, from extratropical cyclones to monsoon precipitation, with agreement also in the diurnal cycle of monsoon precipitation. In winter months, WRF compares better in timeseries of daily precipitation to stations below than above 3-km elevation, likely due to inferior measurement of snow than rain by the stations, highlighting the need for reliable snowfall measurements at high elevations in winter. In summer months, the nocturnal precipitation cycle in the foothills and valleys of the Himalaya is captured by this 6.7-km WRF simulation, while coarser simulations with convective parameterization show near zero nocturnalThe Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used to simulate the spatiotemporal distribution of precipitation over central Asia over the year April 2005 through March 2006. Experiments are performed at 6.7 km horizontal grid spacing, with an emphasis on winter and summer precipitation over the Himalaya. The model and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission show a similar inter-seasonal cycle of precipitation, from extratropical cyclones to monsoon precipitation, with agreement also in the diurnal cycle of monsoon precipitation. In winter months, WRF compares better in timeseries of daily precipitation to stations below than above 3-km elevation, likely due to inferior measurement of snow than rain by the stations, highlighting the need for reliable snowfall measurements at high elevations in winter. In summer months, the nocturnal precipitation cycle in the foothills and valleys of the Himalaya is captured by this 6.7-km WRF simulation, while coarser simulations with convective parameterization show near zero nocturnal precipitation. In winter months, higher resolution is less important, serving only to slightly increase precipitation magnitudes due to steeper slopes. However, even in the 6.7-km simulation, afternoon precipitation is overestimated at high elevations, which can be reduced by even higher-resolution (2.2-km) simulations. These results indicate that WRF provides skillful simulations of precipitation relevant for studies of water resources over the complex terrain in the Himalaya.…
Author details: | Jesse Norris, Leila M. V. Carvalho, Charles Jones, Forest Cannon, Bodo BookhagenORCiDGND, Elisa Palazzi, Adnan Ahmad Tahir |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3414-y |
ISSN: | 0930-7575 |
ISSN: | 1432-0894 |
Title of parent work (English): | Climate dynamics : observational, theoretical and computational research on the climate system |
Publisher: | Springer |
Place of publishing: | New York |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of first publication: | 2017 |
Publication year: | 2017 |
Release date: | 2020/04/20 |
Tag: | Climate change; Himalayas; Mesoscale; Orographicprecipitation; Precipitation; WRF; Water resources |
Volume: | 49 |
Number of pages: | 26 |
First page: | 2179 |
Last Page: | 2204 |
Funding institution: | Climate and Large-scale Dynamics Program from the National Science Foundation (NSF) [AGS 1116105]; U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters under the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship Program [13-EARTH13F-26]; Japan National Space Development Agency (NASDA); NASA Office of Earth Science; NSF |
Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Institution name at the time of the publication: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Erd- und Umweltwissenschaften |