The impact of background error parameters on heavy rainfall prediction

Abstract

A heavy rainfall event over the northwest of India is selected to investigate the impact of Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS)-retrieved temperature and moisture profile assimilation on regional model prediction. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and its three-dimensional variational (3D-Var) data assimilation system (WRFDA) is used to assimilate AIRS profiles with tuning of two major background error parameters – viz. length and variance scales. Assimilation of AIRS profiles improves the WRF model analyses, which are closer to the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) profiles compared to those without assimilation experiment. Results show that within a wide parameter range of length and variance scales, the assimilation of AIRS-retrieved profiles has a positive influence on heavy rainfall prediction. Approximately 9–30, 5–42, and 0.5–3.0% domain average values of improvement are observed after AIRS profile assimilation for different values of length and variance scales in temperature, water vapour mixing ratio, and rainfall prediction, respectively. This study shows that the impact of observations on the WRF model forecast is dependent on the length and variance scale parameters of background error, and lower values of length scale in WRFDA result in degradation of the forecast.