Search

The effect of cumulus parameterization (CP) on simulated climatological tropical cyclone (TC) activity over the CORDEX East Asia domain has been investigated by using the weather research and forecasting model. The simulations were conducted during 1988–2009 with a 25-km horizontal resolution, driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis. Five experiments were performed and evaluated with different CP schemes including Kain–Fritsch (KF), KF with modified convective trigger function (KFML), multi-scale KF (MsKF), simplified Arakawa–Schubert (SAS) and Betts–Miller–Janjic (BMJ) schemes. Significant differences of TC genesis locations and tracks can be found between the CP schemes, which are attributed to simulated large-scale environment discrepancies. Simulations with the KF, KFML and MsKF schemes produced more TC numbers and stronger intensities than the SAS and BMJ simulations. The eastward extension and enhancement of the monsoon trough (MT) in the KF, KFML and MsKF simulations caused a southeast shift of the main TC genesis region, and provided a suitable environment for TC development. The KFML simulation reduced the excessive rainfall and TC activities that had appeared in the KF simulation and increased the proportion of intense TCs. The reduced tropical surface latent and moisture flux in the MsKF simulation, along with weaker upward vertical motion, contributed to weaker tropical rainfall and TC intensities. The SAS simulation produced less large-scale instabilities, which led to less active convections and weaker TC genesis and intensities. The genesis region in the BMJ simulation was shifted further north due to the northward-shifted reverse-oriented MT together with enhanced wind shear over the tropical ocean, resulting in detrimental environmental conditions for TC development. In addition, the BMJ scheme produced significant upper-tropospheric warming, attributed to enhanced grid-scale convective heat transport and latent heating of condensation in high-level stratiform cloud extending to the south boundary of WPSH, this resulted in the retreat of the subtropical high and caused the TC to recurve earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the characteristics of tropical cyclones (TCs) over the East Asia Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment domain are examined with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Eight 20-year (1989-2008) simulations are performed using the WRF model, with lateral boundary forcing from the ERA-Interim reanalysis, to test the sensitivity of TC simulation to interior spectral nudging (SN, including nudging time interval, nudging variables) and radiation schemes [Community Atmosphere Model (CAM), Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTM)]. The simulated TCs are compared with the observation from the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centers TC best tracks. It is found that all WRF runs can simulate the climatology of key TC features such as the tracks and location/frequency of genesis reasonably well, and reproduce the inter-annual variations and seasonal cycle of TC counts. The SN runs produce enhanced TC activity compare to the runs without SN. The thermodynamic profile suggests that nudging with horizontal wind increases the unstable of thermodynamic states in tropics, which results in excessive TCs genesis. The experiments with wind and temperature nudging improve the overestimation of TCs numbers, especially suppress the TCs intensification by correct the thermodynamic profile. Weak SN coefficient enhances TCs activity significantly even with wind and temperature nudging. The analysis of TCs numbers and large scale circulation shows that the SN parameters adopted in our experiments do not appear to suppress the formation of TC. The excessive TCs activity in CAM runs relative to RRTM runs are also due to the enhanced atmospheric instability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convection initiation (CI) prior to the merger of a sea-breeze front (SBF) with a gust front (GF) in North China is investigated using a real-data Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) simulation with a high resolution of 444.4 m. The overall evolution of the GF and SBF is well reproduced by the simulation. The GF was produced by the decaying convective storm over northern Beijing, while the SBF came from the Bohai Sea. Several convective cells were generated between the two fronts even though they were still about 25–30 km far away from each other. During the development of these cells, the low-level convergence and conditional instability averaged within the intermediate area between the two fronts were enhanced significantly, both of which favored the initiation of convection. Vertical momentum budgets were conducted in the intermediate area as well as along the backward trajectories of parcels within a selected convective cell. The vertical acceleration was decomposed into dynamic and buoyant components, respectively. The diagnostic results showed that the dynamic acceleration dominated in the low level, while buoyant acceleration became evident only when the parcel reached a high altitude above 2 km. Therefore the dynamic forcing appeared to be more relevant to CI. The dynamic acceleration was further decomposed into four terms based on anelastic approximation. The positive dynamic acceleration was mainly caused by fluid extension associated with the low-level convergence, while fluid twisting in the vertical contributed negatively to the dynamic acceleration. The other two terms related to horizontal curvature and height variation of density were negligibly small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]