scholarly journals Impacts of High-Resolution Land Surface Initialization on Regional Sensible Weather Forecasts from the WRF Model

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1249-1266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan L. Case ◽  
William L. Crosson ◽  
Sujay V. Kumar ◽  
William M. Lapenta ◽  
Christa D. Peters-Lidard

Abstract This manuscript presents an assessment of daily regional simulations of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) numerical weather prediction (NWP) model initialized with high-resolution land surface data from the NASA Land Information System (LIS) software versus a control WRF configuration that uses land surface data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Eta Model. The goal of this study is to investigate the potential benefits of using the LIS software to improve land surface initialization for regional NWP. Fifty-eight individual nested simulations were integrated for 24 h for both the control and experimental (LISWRF) configurations during May 2004 over Florida and the surrounding areas: 29 initialized at 0000 UTC and 29 initialized at 1200 UTC. The land surface initial conditions for the LISWRF runs came from an offline integration of the Noah land surface model (LSM) within LIS for two years prior to the beginning of the month-long study on an identical grid domain to the subsequent WRF simulations. Atmospheric variables used to force the offline Noah LSM integration were provided by the North American Land Data Assimilation System and Global Data Assimilation System gridded analyses. The LISWRF soil states were generally cooler and drier than the NCEP Eta Model soil states during May 2004. Comparisons between the control and LISWRF runs for one event suggested that the LIS land surface initial conditions led to an improvement in the timing and evolution of a sea-breeze circulation over portions of northwestern Florida. Surface verification statistics for the entire month indicated that the LISWRF runs produced a more enhanced and accurate diurnal range in 2-m temperatures compared to the control as a result of the overall drier initial soil states, which resulted from a reduction in the nocturnal warm bias in conjunction with a reduction in the daytime cold bias. Daytime LISWRF 2-m dewpoints were correspondingly drier than the control dewpoints, again a manifestation of the drier initial soil states in LISWRF. The positive results of the LISWRF experiments help to illustrate the importance of initializing regional NWP models with high-quality land surface data generated at the same grid resolution.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. Schürmann ◽  
T. Kaminski ◽  
C. Köstler ◽  
N. Carvalhais ◽  
M. Voßbeck ◽  
...  

Abstract. We describe the Max Planck Institute Carbon Cycle Data Assimilation System (MPI-CCDAS) built around the tangent-linear version of the land surface scheme of the MPI-Earth System Model v1 (JSBACH). The simulated terrestrial biosphere processes (phenology and carbon balance) were constrained by observations of the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (TIP-FAPAR product) and by observations of atmospheric CO2 at a global set of monitoring stations for the years 2005–2009. The system successfully, and computationally efficiently, improved average foliar area and northern extra-tropical seasonality of foliar area when constrained by TIP-FAPAR. Global net and gross carbon fluxes were improved when constrained by atmospheric CO2, although the system tended to underestimate tropical productivity. Assimilating both data streams jointly allowed the MPI-CCDAS to match both observations (TIP-FAPAR and atmospheric CO2) equally well as the single data stream assimilation cases, therefore overall increasing the appropriateness of the resultant parameter values and biosphere dynamics. Our study thus highlights the role of the TIP-FAPAR product in stabilising the underdetermined atmospheric inversion problem and demonstrates the value of multiple-data stream assimilation for the simulation of terrestrial biosphere dynamics. The constraint on regional gross and net CO2 flux patterns is limited through the parametrisation of the biosphere model. We expect improvement on that aspect through a refined initialisation strategy and inclusion of further biosphere observations as constraints.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Mucia ◽  
Clément Albergel ◽  
Bertrand Bonan ◽  
Yongjun Zheng ◽  
Jean-Christophe Calvet

<p>LDAS-Monde is a global Land Data Assimilation System developed in the research department of Météo-France (CNRM) to monitor Land Surface Variables (LSVs) at various scales, from regional to global. With LDAS-Monde, it is possible to assimilate satellite derived observations of Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) and Leaf Area Index (LAI) e.g. from the Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS). It is an offline system normally driven by atmospheric reanalyses such as ECMWF ERA5.</p><p>In this study we investigate LDAS-Monde ability to use atmospheric forecasts to predict LSV states up to weeks in advance. In addition to the accuracy of the forecast predictions, the impact of the initialization on the LSVs forecast is addressed. To perform this study, LDAS-Monde is forced by a fifteen-day forecast from ECMWF for the 2017-2018 period over the Contiguous United States (CONUS) at 0.2<sup>o</sup> x 0.2<sup>o</sup> spatial resolution. These LSVs forecasts are initialized either by the model alone (LDAS-Monde open-loop, no assimilation, Fc_ol) or by the analysis (assimilation of SSM and LAI, Fc_an). These two sets of forecast are then assessed using satellite derived observations of SSM and LAI, evapotranspiration estimates, as well as in situ measurements of soil moisture from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). Results indicate that for the three evaluation variables (SSM, LAI, and evapotranspiration), LDAS-Monde provides reasonably accurate predictions two weeks in advance. Additionally, the initial conditions are shown to make a positive impact with respect to LAI, evapotranspiration, and deeper layers of soil moisture when using Fc_an. Moreover, this impact persists in time, particularly for vegetation related variables. Other model variables (such as runoff and drainage) are also affected by the initial conditions. Future work will focus on the transfer of this predictive information from a research to stakeholder tool.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (11) ◽  
pp. 8941-8965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujay V. Kumar ◽  
Shugong Wang ◽  
David M. Mocko ◽  
Christa D. Peters-Lidard ◽  
Youlong Xia

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 2999-3026 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregor J. Schürmann ◽  
Thomas Kaminski ◽  
Christoph Köstler ◽  
Nuno Carvalhais ◽  
Michael Voßbeck ◽  
...  

Abstract. We describe the Max Planck Institute Carbon Cycle Data Assimilation System (MPI-CCDAS) built around the tangent-linear version of the JSBACH land-surface scheme, which is part of the MPI-Earth System Model v1. The simulated phenology and net land carbon balance were constrained by globally distributed observations of the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR, using the TIP-FAPAR product) and atmospheric CO2 at a global set of monitoring stations for the years 2005 to 2009. When constrained by FAPAR observations alone, the system successfully, and computationally efficiently, improved simulated growing-season average FAPAR, as well as its seasonality in the northern extra-tropics. When constrained by atmospheric CO2 observations alone, global net and gross carbon fluxes were improved, despite a tendency of the system to underestimate tropical productivity. Assimilating both data streams jointly allowed the MPI-CCDAS to match both observations (TIP-FAPAR and atmospheric CO2) equally well as the single data stream assimilation cases, thereby increasing the overall appropriateness of the simulated biosphere dynamics and underlying parameter values. Our study thus demonstrates the value of multiple-data-stream assimilation for the simulation of terrestrial biosphere dynamics. It further highlights the potential role of remote sensing data, here the TIP-FAPAR product, in stabilising the strongly underdetermined atmospheric inversion problem posed by atmospheric transport and CO2 observations alone. Notwithstanding these advances, the constraint of the observations on regional gross and net CO2 flux patterns on the MPI-CCDAS is limited through the coarse-scale parametrisation of the biosphere model. We expect improvement through a refined initialisation strategy and inclusion of further biosphere observations as constraints.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Mucia ◽  
Bertrand Bonan ◽  
Yongjun Zheng ◽  
Clément Albergel ◽  
Jean-Christophe Calvet

LDAS-Monde is a global land data assimilation system (LDAS) developed by Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM) to monitor land surface variables (LSV) at various scales, from regional to global. With LDAS-Monde, it is possible to jointly assimilate satellite-derived observations of surface soil moisture (SSM) and leaf area index (LAI) into the interactions between soil biosphere and atmosphere (ISBA) land surface model (LSM) in order to analyze the soil moisture profile together with vegetation biomass. In this study, we investigate LDAS-Monde’s ability to predict LSV states up to two weeks in the future using atmospheric forecasts. In particular, the impact of the initialization, and the evolution of the forecasted variables in the LSM are addressed. LDAS-Monde is an offline system normally driven by atmospheric reanalysis, but in this study is forced by atmospheric forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) for the 2017–2018 period over the contiguous United States (CONUS) at a 0.2° × 0.2° spatial resolution. These LSV forecasts are initialized either by the model alone (LDAS-Monde open-loop, without assimilation) or by the analysis (assimilation of SSM and LAI). These two forecasts are then evaluated using satellite-derived observations of SSM and LAI, evapotranspiration (ET) estimates, as well as in situ measurements of soil moisture from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). Results indicate that for the three evaluation variables (SSM, LAI, and ET), LDAS-Monde provides reasonably accurate and consistent predictions two weeks in advance. Additionally, the initial conditions after assimilation are shown to make a positive impact with respect to LAI and ET. This impact persists in time for these two vegetation-related variables. Many model variables, such as SSM, root zone soil moisture (RZSM), LAI, ET, and drainage, remain relatively consistent as the forecast lead time increases, while runoff is highly variable.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 1293-1314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco L. Carrera ◽  
Stéphane Bélair ◽  
Bernard Bilodeau

Abstract The Canadian Land Data Assimilation System (CaLDAS) has been developed at the Meteorological Research Division of Environment Canada (EC) to better represent the land surface initial states in environmental prediction and assimilation systems. CaLDAS is built around an external land surface modeling system and uses the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) methodology. A unique feature of CaLDAS is the use of improved precipitation forcing through the assimilation of precipitation observations. An ensemble of precipitation analyses is generated by combining numerical weather prediction (NWP) model precipitation forecasts with precipitation observations. Spatial phasing errors to the NWP first-guess precipitation forecasts are more effective than perturbations to the precipitation observations in decreasing (increasing) the exceedance ratio (uncertainty ratio) scores and generating flatter, more reliable ranked histograms. CaLDAS has been configured to assimilate L-band microwave brightness temperature TB by coupling the land surface model with a microwave radiative transfer model. A continental-scale synthetic experiment assimilating passive L-band TBs for an entire warm season is performed over North America. Ensemble metric scores are used to quantify the impact of different atmospheric forcing uncertainties on soil moisture and TB ensemble spread. The use of an ensemble of precipitation analyses, generated by assimilating precipitation observations, as forcing combined with the assimilation of L-band TBs gave rise to the largest improvements in superficial soil moisture scores and to a more rapid reduction of the root-zone soil moisture errors. Innovation diagnostics show that the EnKF is able to maintain a sufficient forecast error spread through time, while soil moisture estimation error improvements with increasing ensemble size were limited.


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