Abstract
The sensitivity of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) parameterizations is investigated using the hybrid Fifth Generation Penn State University/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Mesoscale Model (MM5) and its results were compared with observations from two field campaigns held during the dry and wet seasons at the Centro de Lancamento de Alcântara (CLA). The comparisons were made using the integrated zonal and meridional components of observed and forecasted winds. Initially, three boundary layer parameterizations, in addition to the current parameterization, were selected for evaluation: Blackadar (BLK), Medium Range Forecast (MRF), Janjic (ETA) and Burk-Thompson (BT). The MRF and BLK schemes produced better results than the ETA and BT schemes. Nevertheless, MRF and BLK underestimate the zonal and meridional wind components by around 16% in the rainy season and overestimate them by on average 18% in the dry season.
Highlights
Nowadays, in the field of Aerospace Meteorology, atmospheric modeling and numerical simulations are necessarily present in the operational planning and logistics of space vehicle launches, with the goals of guaranteeing higher security in the activities on the surface and in flight and contributing to the success of the launches
In order to use a numerical model to forecast the winds at the Centro de Lançamento de Alcântara (CLA), this study addressed the question of its evaluation using four different planetary boundary layer (PBL) parameterizations, to be described in section Description of the Modified MM5 Model, against data sets collected by radiosonde winds from the surface up to 5,000 m during wet and dry periods
It was noticed in this experiment that ETA and BT parameterizations are not suitable for the CLA
Summary
In the field of Aerospace Meteorology, atmospheric modeling and numerical simulations are necessarily present in the operational planning and logistics of space vehicle launches, with the goals of guaranteeing higher security in the activities on the surface and in flight and contributing to the success of the launches. Considering for September 17, 2008 a booting from 12:00 UTC (Fig. 3), the ETA simulations (Fig. 3c), BLK (Fig. 3d), BT (Fig. 3e) and MRF (Fig. 3f) tend to overestimate, especially ETA and BT parameterizations, the zonal wind above 925 hPa. The startup from 12:00 UTC did not result in better forecasting for the meridional component (Fig. 4).
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