Abstract. Solar eclipses are predictable astronomical events that abruptly reduce the incoming solar radiation into the Earth's atmosphere, which frequently results in nonnegligible changes in meteorological fields. The meteorological impacts of these events have been analyzed in many studies since the late 1960s. The recent growth in the solar energy industry has greatly increased the interest in providing more detail in the modeling of solar radiation variations in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models for the use in solar resource assessment and forecasting applications. The significant impact of the recent partial and total solar eclipses that occurred in the USA (23 October 2014) and Europe (20 March 2015) on solar power generation have provided additional motivation and interest for including these astronomical events in the current solar parameterizations.Although some studies added solar eclipse episodes within NWP codes in the 1990s and 2000s, they used eclipse parameterizations designed for a particular case study. In contrast to these earlier implementations, this paper documents a new package for the Weather Research and ForecastingAdvanced Research WRF (WRF-ARW) model that can simulate any partial, total or hybrid solar eclipse for the period 1950 to 2050 and is also extensible to a longer period. The algorithm analytically computes the trajectory of the Moon's shadow and the degree of obscuration of the solar disk at each grid point of the domain based on Bessel's method and the Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses provided by NASA, with a negligible computational time. Then, the incoming radiation is modified accordingly at each grid point of the domain.This contribution is divided in three parts. First, the implementation of Bessel's method is validated for solar eclipses in the period 1950-2050, by comparing the shadow trajectory with values provided by NASA. Latitude and longitude are determined with a bias lower than 5 × 10 −3 degrees (i.e., ∼ 550 m at the Equator) and are slightly overestimated and underestimated, respectively. The second part includes a validation of the simulated global horizontal irradiance (GHI) for four total solar eclipses with measurements from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN). The results show an improvement in mean absolute error (MAE) from 77 to 90 % under cloudless skies. Lower agreement between modeled and measured GHI is observed under cloudy conditions because the effect of clouds is not included in the simulations for a better analysis of the eclipse outcomes. Finally, an introductory discussion of eclipse-induced perturbations in the surface meteorological fields (e.g., temperature, wind speed) is provided by comparing the WRF-eclipse outcomes with control simulations.
A real case long-term nested large eddy simulation (LES) of 25-day duration is performed using the WRF-LES modelling system, with a maximum horizontal grid resolution of 111 m, in order to explore the ability of the model to reproduce the turbulence magnitudes within the first tens of metres of the boundary layer. Sonic anemometer measurements from a 60-m tower installed during the Boundary Layer Late Afternoon and Sunset Turbulence (BLLAST) field campaign are used for verification, which is focused on the turbulent magnitudes in order to assess the success and limitations in resolving turbulent flow characteristics. The mesoscale and LES simulations reproduce the wind speed and direction fairly well, but only LES is able to reproduce the energy of eddies with lifetimes shorter than a few hours. The turbulent kinetic energy in LES simulation is generally underestimated during the daytime, mainly due to a vertical velocity standard deviation that is too low. The turbulent heat flux is misrepresented in the model, probably due to the inaccuracy of the sub-grid scheme.
Abstract.Although ozone is an atmospheric gas with high spatial and temporal variability, mesoscale numerical weather prediction (NWP) models simplify the specification of ozone concentrations used in their shortwave schemes by using a few ozone profiles. In this paper, a two-part study is presented: (i) an evaluation of the quality of the ozone profiles provided for use with the shortwave schemes in the Advanced Research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-ARW) model and (ii) an assessment of the impact of deficiencies in those profiles on the performance of model simulations of direct solar radiation. The first part compares simplified data sets used to specify the total ozone column in six schemes (i.e., Goddard, New Goddard, RRTMG, CAM, GFDL and Fu-Liou-Gu) with the Multi-Sensor Reanalysis data set during the period 1979-2008 examining the latitudinal, longitudinal and seasonal limitations in the ozone profile specifications of each parameterization. The results indicate that the maximum deviations are over the poles and show prominent longitudinal patterns in the departures due to the lack of representation of the patterns associated with the Brewer-Dobson circulation and the quasi-stationary features forced by the land-sea distribution, respectively. In the second part, the bias in the simulated direct solar radiation due to these deviations from the simplified spatial and temporal representation of the ozone distribution is analyzed for the New Goddard and CAM schemes using the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer law and for the GFDL using empirical equations. For radiative applications those simplifications introduce spatial and temporal biases with near-zero departures over the tropics throughout the year and increasing poleward with a maximum in the high middle latitudes during the winter of each hemisphere.
Abstract. When conducting meso-micro scale coupled atmospheric simulations, it is crucial to ensure an adequate treatment of gray zone or terra incognita resolutions in which a large portion of the kinetic energy is naturally produced by the momentum balance equations in the model, while the remaining part still needs to be parameterized. In this work, we conduct three multiday, real case, full-physics atmospheric simulations that are fully coupled from the meso to the micro scale and in which the only difference is the treatment of boundary layer physics at the gray zone domain. One simulation uses a well-established 5 parameterization, another uses its scale-aware version previously modified to accommodate gray zone resolutions, and a final one uses no parameterization at all and assumes that the gray zone domain can be run in large-eddy simulation (LES) mode.The simulated fields are cross-compared, and further compared to measurements collected during the Prince Edward Island Wind Energy Experiment. Use of LES in the gray zone domain influences the flow fields in a manner that is robust to temporal averaging. The best predictions of vertical wind shear were found for the simulations in which the gray zone is parameterized, 10 and the inclusion of a micro scale nest run in LES mode within the gray zone domains increased the model errors by producing overly homogeneous flow fields. The parameterized simulations also produced better agreement in terms of kinetic energy spectra at the two innermost simulation domains. In the gray zone domain, the energy decays as f −3 throughout most of the spectral range considered. In the micro scale domain, the same is only seen in the low-frequency end of the gray zone spectral range. In the high-frequency end, the energy decay follows a f −1 slope. Outside the gray zone spectral range, the micro scale 15 simulated spectra follow the expected f −5/3 slope and produce good agreement with measurements.
Abstract. Although ozone is an atmospheric gas with high spatial and temporal variability, mesoscale numerical weather prediction (NWP) models simplify the specification of ozone concentrations used in their shortwave schemes by using a few ozone profiles. In this paper, a two-part study is presented: (i) an assessment of the quality of the ozone profiles provided for use with the shortwave schemes in the Advanced Research version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-ARW) model and (ii) the impact of deficiencies in those profiles on the performance of model simulations of direct solar radiation. The first part compares simplified datasets used to specify the total ozone column in five schemes (i.e. Goddard, New Goddard, RRTMG, CAM and Fu–Liou–Gu) with the Multi-Sensor Reanalysis dataset during the period 1979–2008 examining the latitudinal, longitudinal and seasonal limitations in the ozone modeling of each parameterization. The results indicate that the maximum deviations are over the poles due to the Brewer–Dobson circulation and there are prominent longitudinal patterns in the departures due to quasi-stationary features forced by the land–sea distribution. In the second part, the bias in the simulated direct solar radiation due to these deviations from the simplified spatial and temporal representation of the ozone distribution is analyzed for the New Goddard and CAM schemes using the Beer–Lambert–Bouger law. For radiative applications those simplifications introduce spatial and temporal biases with near-zero departures over the tropics during all the year and increasing poleward with a maximum in the high middle latitudes during the winter of each hemisphere.
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