The Sensitivity of the Icosahedral Non-Hydrostatic Numerical Weather Prediction Model over Greece in Reference to Observations as a Basis towards Model Tuning

Abstract

The ICON (icosahedral non-hydrostatic) numerical weather prediction model (NWP)’s sensitivity is evaluated for the geographical area of Greece. As ICON model has recently been endorsed operationally by the Members of the COSMO (Consortium for Small-scale Modeling); this attempt is in line with the further understanding of the model features, especially in the considered domain, characterized by a complex orography as well as an almost equally partitioned land–sea surface area. An extraordinary number of 24 model parameters have been tested for the whole 2020 year in reference to 88 Greek meteorological stations, with regard to the standard synoptic meteorological variables of 2 m temperature, 2 m minimum and maximum temperatures, dew-point temperature, 10 m wind intensity and 12 h accumulated precipitation. For these variables, the model sensitivity is given in terms of the annual average of all stations for the fifth lead day of the model runs when the sensitivity is expected to reach its peak. It was found that there is a considerable impact regarding the minimum and maximum values for many of the examined parameters in reference to their default values, and consideration is given to a heuristic recommendation on the selection of the most sensitive parameters.