Impacts of air–sea exchange coefficients on snowfall events over the Korean Peninsula

Abstract

Snowfall over the Korean Peninsula is mainly associated with air mass transformation by the fluxes across the air–sea interface during cold-air outbreaks over the warm Yellow Sea. The heat and momentum exchange coefficients in the surface flux parameterization are key parameters of flux calculations across the air–sea interface. This study investigates the effects of the air–sea exchange coefficients on the simulations of snowfall events over the Korean Peninsula using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Two snowfall cases are selected for this study. One is a heavy snowfall event that took place on January 4, 2010, and the other is a light snowfall event that occurred on December 23–24, 2011.Several sensitivity tests are carried out with increased and decreased heat and momentum exchange coefficients. The domain-averaged precipitation is increased (decreased) with increased (decreased) heat exchange coefficient because the increased (decreased) surface heat flux leads to more (less) moist conditions in the low level of the atmosphere. On the other hand, the domain-averaged precipitation is decreased (increased) with increased (decreased) momentum exchange coefficient because the increased (decreased) momentum coefficient causes reduction (increase) of wind speed and heat flux. The variation of precipitation in the heat exchange coefficient experiments is much larger than that in the momentum exchange coefficient experiments because the change of heat flux has a more direct impact on moisture flux and snowfall amount, while the change of momentum flux has a rather indirect impact via wind speed changes. The low-pressure system is intensified and moves toward North when the heat exchange coefficient is increased because warming and moistening of the lower atmosphere contributes to destabilize the air mass, resulting in the change of precipitation pattern over the Korean Peninsula in the heat exchange coefficient experiments.