Variable Horizontal Resolution Research Articles

Recent upgrades to the Met Office convective‐scale ensemble: An hourly time‐lagged 5‐day ensemble

AbstractIn this article, we introduce a new configuration of the Met Office convective‐scale ensemble for numerical weather prediction, for the Met Office Global and Regional Ensemble Prediction System over the United Kingdom (MOGREPS‐UK). The new version, which became operational in March 2019, uses an hourly time‐lagged configuration to take advantage of the hourly 4D‐Var data assimilation run in the deterministic UK model with variable horizontal resolution, the UKV. An 18‐member ensemble is created by running three members every hour and time‐lagging these over a 6 hr window. This configuration is compared against the previous operational configuration, a 6‐hourly convective‐scale ensemble running 12 members. The main benefits of the time‐lagged ensemble are to increase the ensemble size, to add small‐scale uncertainties in the initial conditions and to generate more timely forecasts. The time‐lagged configuration is shown to objectively improve the forecast at all lead times, with larger improvements in the first few hours. The improvement is seen in the ranked probability scores and is mainly associated with the improvements in the spread of the ensemble with an increase of about 5 to 10% in both summer and winter seasons. A larger ensemble size is necessary in the time‐lagged configuration for it to outperform or maintain as good a performance against the previous 6‐hourly configuration for all lead times. Alongside the update to an hourly configuration, the forecast length is more than doubled to 120 hr. Objective verification shows that the time‐lagged configuration performs better than the high‐resolution deterministic, UKV, and the global ensemble, MOGREPS‐G, up to T + 120 hr. Increasing the size of the time‐lagged ensemble through lagging over additional cycles leads to small but significant improvements, larger in most cases than those that can be obtained through neighbourhood processing.

Evaluation and Application of Newly Designed Finite Volume Coastal Model FESOM-C, Effect of Variable Resolution in the Southeastern North Sea

A newly developed coastal model, FESOM-C, based on three-dimensional unstructured meshes and finite volume, is applied to simulate the dynamics of the southeastern North Sea. Variable horizontal resolution enables coarse meshes in the open sea with refined meshes in shallow areas including the Wadden Sea and estuaries to resolve important small-scale processes such as wetting and drying, sub-mesoscale eddies, and the dynamics of steep coastal fronts. Model results for a simulation of the period from January 2010 to December 2014 agree reasonably well with data from numerous regional autonomous observation stations with high temporal and spatial resolutions, as well as with data from FerryBoxes and glider expeditions. Analyzing numerical solution convergence on meshes of different horizontal resolutions allows us to identify areas where high mesh resolution (wetting and drying zones and shallow areas) and low mesh resolution (open boundary, open sea, and deep regions) are optimal for numerical simulations.

Tidal downscaling from the open ocean to the coast: a new approach applied to the Bay of Biscay

Downscaling physical processes from a large scale to a regional scale 3D model is a recurrent issue in coastal processes studies. The choice of boundary conditions will often greatly influence the solution within the 3D circulation model. In some regions, tides play a key role in coastal dynamics and must be accurately represented.The Bay of Biscay is one of these regions, with highly energetic tides influencing coastal circulation and river plume dynamics. In this study, three strategies are tested to force with barotropic tides a 3D circulation model with a variable horizontal resolution. The tidal forcings, as well as the tidal elevations and currents resulting from the 3D simulations, are compared to tidal harmonics extracted from satellite altimetry and tidal gauges, and tidal currents harmonics obtained from ADCP data.The results show a strong improvement of the M2 solution within the 3D model with a ”tailored” tidal forcing generated on the same grid and bathymetry as the 3D configuration, compared to a global tidal atlas forcing. Tidal harmonics obtained from satellite altimetry data are particularly valuable to assess the performance of each simulation. Comparisons between sea surface height time series, a sea surface salinity database, and daily averaged 2D currents also show a better agreement with this tailored forcing.

Coastal ocean forecasting with an unstructured grid model in the southern Adriatic and northern Ionian seas

Abstract. SANIFS (Southern Adriatic Northern Ionian coastal Forecasting System) is a coastal-ocean operational system based on the unstructured grid finite-element three-dimensional hydrodynamic SHYFEM model, providing short-term forecasts. The operational chain is based on a downscaling approach starting from the large-scale system for the entire Mediterranean Basin (MFS, Mediterranean Forecasting System), which provides initial and boundary condition fields to the nested system. The model is configured to provide hydrodynamics and active tracer forecasts both in open ocean and coastal waters of southeastern Italy using a variable horizontal resolution from the open sea (3–4 km) to coastal areas (50–500 m). Given that the coastal fields are driven by a combination of both local (also known as coastal) and deep-ocean forcings propagating along the shelf, the performance of SANIFS was verified both in forecast and simulation mode, first (i) on the large and shelf-coastal scales by comparing with a large-scale survey CTD (conductivity–temperature–depth) in the Gulf of Taranto and then (ii) on the coastal-harbour scale (Mar Grande of Taranto) by comparison with CTD, ADCP (acoustic doppler current profiler) and tide gauge data. Sensitivity tests were performed on initialization conditions (mainly focused on spin-up procedures) and on surface boundary conditions by assessing the reliability of two alternative datasets at different horizontal resolution (12.5 and 6.5 km). The SANIFS forecasts at a lead time of 1 day were compared with the MFS forecasts, highlighting that SANIFS is able to retain the large-scale dynamics of MFS. The large-scale dynamics of MFS are correctly propagated to the shelf-coastal scale, improving the forecast accuracy (+17 % for temperature and +6 % for salinity compared to MFS). Moreover, the added value of SANIFS was assessed on the coastal-harbour scale, which is not covered by the coarse resolution of MFS, where the fields forecasted by SANIFS reproduced the observations well (temperature RMSE equal to 0.11 °C). Furthermore, SANIFS simulations were compared with hourly time series of temperature, sea level and velocity measured on the coastal-harbour scale, showing a good agreement. Simulations in the Gulf of Taranto described a circulation mainly characterized by an anticyclonic gyre with the presence of cyclonic vortexes in shelf-coastal areas. A surface water inflow from the open sea to Mar Grande characterizes the coastal-harbour scale.

Performance of weather research and forecasting model with variable horizontal resolution

In this paper, Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is employed with three different horizontal grid spacings (45, 15 and 5 km) to assess the impact of horizontal resolution on short-range weather forecast. Simulations are carried out daily at 0000 UTC over the Indian region during the entire month of July 2011. A rigorous validation is performed against surface observations, radiosonde measurements and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B42 merged rainfall product. Results show that horizontal resolution has a substantial impact on the WRF model forecast, particularly on the near surface temperature, moisture, winds and rainfall forecasts. Relative to 45-km horizontal grid spacing, 24-h forecasts of near surface temperature, moisture and winds are improved by ∼15, 9 and 4 %, respectively, when horizontal grid spacing is reduced to 5 km. Noteworthy improvement is also seen in the 24-h rainfall forecasts of the WRF model as the horizontal grid spacing decreased from 45 to 5 km. Larger improvements are observed over the Western Ghats and northeastern part of India compared to central India, which demonstrate the importance of finer resolution over the mountainous terrain compared to plains.

PEARP, the Météo‐France short‐range ensemble prediction system

Météo‐France has implemented a short‐range ensemble prediction system known as Prévision d'Ensemble ARPEGE (PEARP). This system is a global ensemble performing forecasts up to 4.5 days. It uses the operational global numerical weather prediction model Action de Recherche Petite Echelle Grande Echelle (ARPEGE) and benefits from variable horizontal resolution, so that it is comparable to some limited‐area mesoscale systems over France. Perturbations to the initial conditions are computed by combining an ensemble data assimilation system with singular vectors. Model uncertainties are represented through a ‘multiphysics’ approach with ten different physical parametrization sets. The article describes the set‐up of the system and provides an assessment of the approaches used to represent initial conditions and model uncertainties. The positive impact of the variable horizontal resolution of PEARP is also illustrated. As a global ensemble forecast system (EFS), PEARP is also used to forecast cyclone tracks. It is shown that it has correctly predicted the landfall of hurricane Sandy. The performance of PEARP as run operationally with these features in 2014 is assessed objectively and compared with that of four operational global EFSs using classical probabilistic scores. This comparison is based on The Observing System Research and Predictability Experiment (THORPEX) Interactive Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE) data. This is one of the first evaluations of EFSs for short‐range forecasts. The reliability and global skill of the five EFSs are evaluated over a three‐month period with scores computed against observations. PEARP shows skill comparable to or better than the other EFSs.

A Multiscale Nonhydrostatic Atmospheric Model Using Centroidal Voronoi Tesselations and C-Grid Staggering

Abstract The formulation of a fully compressible nonhydrostatic atmospheric model called the Model for Prediction Across Scales–Atmosphere (MPAS-A) is described. The solver is discretized using centroidal Voronoi meshes and a C-grid staggering of the prognostic variables, and it incorporates a split-explicit time-integration technique used in many existing nonhydrostatic meso- and cloud-scale models. MPAS can be applied to the globe, over limited areas of the globe, and on Cartesian planes. The Voronoi meshes are unstructured grids that permit variable horizontal resolution. These meshes allow for applications beyond uniform-resolution NWP and climate prediction, in particular allowing embedded high-resolution regions to be used for regional NWP and regional climate applications. The rationales for aspects of this formulation are discussed, and results from tests for nonhydrostatic flows on Cartesian planes and for large-scale flow on the sphere are presented. The results indicate that the solver is as accurate as existing nonhydrostatic solvers for nonhydrostatic-scale flows, and has accuracy comparable to existing global models using icosahedral (hexagonal) meshes for large-scale flows in idealized tests. Preliminary full-physics forecast results indicate that the solver formulation is robust and that the variable-resolution-mesh solutions are well resolved and exhibit no obvious problems in the mesh-transition zones.

Bottom water formation in the southern Weddell Sea and the influence of submarine ridges: Idealized numerical simulations

Cold Ice Shelf Water (ISW) flowing out of the Filchner Depression in the southern Weddell Sea provides a significant contribution to the production of Weddell Sea Bottom Water (WSBW) after mixing with the overlying Warm Deep Water (WDW). The characteristics of Filchner overflow including the plume path, thickness, transport, eddy formation and mixing processes are studied using the Finite Element Ocean circulation Model (FEOM) on a sigma grid with variable horizontal resolution. It is demonstrated that the cold dense water descends very fast on entering the continental slope. Its center is found below the 2500 m isobath after traveling only 200 km along the slope. Most mixing and entrainment also takes place within this short distance. Further downstream, the along-slope transport increases most significantly between the 2000 m and 3000 m isobaths. The conversion rate from ISW to newly formed WSBW (defined as a water mass with potential temperature below −0.8 °C) is found to be 2.2. The transport of WSBW does not show significant changes after 400 km downstream, but conversion between different water classes still remains active. Two ridges on the slope of the southern Weddell Sea influence the overflow by both steering and increasing mixing. The ridges split the path of the overflow, which leads to a higher transport between the 2000 m and 3000 m isobaths. Mixing between ISW and WDW is considerably increased by the ridges.

A scheme for estimating tropical cyclone intensity using AMSU-A data

Brightness temperature anomalies measured by the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting series are suited to estimate tropical cyclone (TC) intensity by virtue of their ability to assess changes in tropospheric warm core structure in the presence of clouds. Analysis of the measurements from different satellites shows that the variable horizontal resolution of the instrument has significant effects on the observed brightness temperature anomalies. With the aim to decrease these effects on TC intensity estimation more easily and effectively, a new simple correction algorithm, which is related to the product of the brightness temperature gradient near the TC center and the size of the field-of-view (FOV) observing the TC center, is proposed to modify the observed anomalies. Without other measurements, the comparison shows that the performance of the new algorithm is better than that of the traditional, physically-based algorithm. Furthermore, based on the correction algorithm, a new scheme, in which the brightness temperature anomalies at 31.4 GHz and 89 GHz accounting for precipitation effects are directly used as the predictors with those at 54.94 GHz and 55.5 GHz, is developed to estimate TC intensity in the western North Pacific basin. The collocated AMSU-A observations from NOAA-16 with the best track (BT) intensity data from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) in 2002–2003 and in 2004 are used respectively to develop and validate regression coefficients. For the independent validation dataset, the scheme yields 8.4 hPa of the root mean square error and 6.6 hPa of the mean absolute error. For the 81 collocated cases in the western North Pacific basin and for the 24 collocated cases in the Atlantic basin, compared to the BT data, the standard deviations of the estimation differences of the results are 15% and 11% less than those of the CIMSS (Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison) TC intensity AMSU estimation products.

A finite-element ocean model: principles and evaluation

We describe a three-dimensional (3D) finite-element ocean model designed for investigating the large-scale ocean circulation on time scales from years to decades. The model solves the primitive equations in the dynamical part and the advection–diffusion equations for temperature and salinity in the thermodynamical part. The time-stepping is implicit. The 3D mesh is composed of tetrahedra and has a variable resolution. It is based on an unstructured 2D surface mesh and is stratified in the vertical direction. The model uses linear functions for horizontal velocity and tracers on tetrahedra, and for surface elevation on surface triangles. The vertical velocity field is elementwise constant. An important ingredient of the model is the Galerkin least-squares stabilization used to minimize effects of unresolved boundary layers and make the matrices to be inverted in time-stepping better conditioned. The model performance was tested in a 16-year simulation of the North Atlantic using a mesh covering the area between 7° and 80° N and providing variable horizontal resolution from 0.3° to 1.5°.

Simulation of South American wintertime climate with a nesting system

A numerical nesting system is developed to simulate wintertime climate of the eastern South Pacific-South America-western South Atlantic region, and preliminary results are presented. The nesting system consists of a large-scale global atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) and a regional climate model (RCM). The latter is driven at its boundaries by the GCM. The particularity of this nesting system is that the GCM itself has a variable horizontal resolution (stretched grid). Our main purpose is to assess the plausibility of such a technique to improve climate representation over South America. In order to evaluate how this nesting system represents the main features of the regional circulation, several mean fields have been analyzed. The global model, despite its relatively low resolution, could simulate reasonably well the more significant large-scale circulation patterns. The use of the regional model often results in improvements, but not universally. Many of the systematic errors of the global model are also present in the regional model, although the biases tend to be rectified. Our preliminary results suggest that nesting technique is a computationally low-cost alternative for simulating regional climate features. However, additional simulations, parametrizations tuning and further diagnosis are clearly needed to represent local patterns more precisely.

Introduction of a local mapping factor in the spectral part of the Météo‐France global variable mesh numerical forecast model

AbstractFor variable horizontal resolution simulations, a new formulation of spectral computations has been implemented in the ARPEGE/IFS spectral global numerical weather forecast model. The formulation makes use of a property of the conformal transformation which defines the stretched geometry: the local mapping factor is a combination of zero and first‐order Legendre polynomials only. Consequently, the mapping factor dependency in the spectral part of the computations can be introduced by simple extra multi‐diagonal operator multiplication. This idea is applied to both the semi‐implicit and the horizontal diffusion schemes to eliminate problems occurring when variable resolution is used together with either long time‐steps or steep orographies. The positive impact of these modifications is presented for semi‐Lagrangian and high‐resolution integrations. The relatively small extra computation and memory cost of the modified schemes is well suited to operational applications.

A Diagnostic Barotropic Finite-Element Ocean Circulation Model

Abstract The finite-element method possesses many advantages over more traditional numerical techniques used to solve systems of differential equations. These advantages include a number of conservation properties and a natural treatment of boundary conditions. The method's piecewise nature makes it useful when dealing with irregular domains and similarly when using variable horizontal resolution. To take advantage of these properties, a finite-element representation of the linearized, steady-state, barotropic potential vorticity equation is developed. The Stommel problem is used as an initial test for the model. A fourth-order eddy viscosity term is then added, and the resulting problem is solved in both simply and multiply connected domains under both slip and no-slip boundary conditions. The beta-plane assumption is then relaxed, and the model is reformulated in spherical coordinates. A realistic geography and topography version of this model is also used to examine the barotropic circulation in the No...