Development of the Regional Arctic Climate System Model (RACM) ---

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Washington

May, 2010

Performance of the VIC land surface model in coupled and uncoupled simulations

Current Status

• The macroscale hydrology model VIC has been successfully coupled with WRF through CCSM4 flux coupler CPL7.

• WRF/VIC successfully runs more than 6 months over Arctic in wr50a grid with ocean and sea ice as a data model.

• Currently WRF/VIC is basically ready for long-time (multi-year) simulation since VIC has restart function and also is able to produce its own output.

SimultationsWRF-VIC : WRF/VIC coupled simulation over the

Arctic region in the wr50a grid (Jan. – Jun. 2003) with ocean and sea ice conditions prescribed (“data model”). Initial and boundary conditions are from FNL.

VIC-obs: VIC Offline Simulations of the Arctic domain (1990-2003) at 50km resolution driven by meteorological observation (provided by Xiaogang Shi).

WRF-noah: Original WRF simulation (by Joan Cassano’s group over wr50a grid driven by NCEP-2 reanalysis data(Sep. 2000 - ).

WRF2: Original WRF simulation (by JuanXiong He ) over wr50a grid driven by FNL (Jan. 1 - 15 2003 ).

SST

Modeling FrameworkArctic Domain wr50a resolution

runs: Jan. – June. 2003

Configuration WV (WRF/VIC)

Features specific to Cold-Land Processes:

• Two-layer energy balance snow model (Storck et al. 1999)

• Frozen soil/permafrost

algorithm (Cherkauer et al. 1999, 2003)

• Lakes and wetlands model (Bowling et al.

2004)

•Blowing snow algorithm (Bowling et

al. 2004)

Validation of coupled WRF/VIC modeling systemWRF/VIC

JFM 2003

AMJ 2003

Observation

WRF/VIC produces drier climate especially over Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway.

Validation of coupled WRF/VIC modeling systemWRF/VIC Observation

JFM 2003

AMJ 2003

WRF/VIC basically captures temperature

pattern but has significantly cold bias

over Russia.

VIC offline simulation ------

VIC in coupled environment

Surface Runoff

JFM

AMJ

WRF/VIC VIC-Obs NCEP-2

Snow Water Equivalent Field

JFM

AMJ

WRF/VIC VIC-Obs NCEP-2

Latent Heat

JFM

AMJ

WRF/VIC VIC-Obs NCEP-2

Sensible Heat

JFM

AMJ

WRF/VIC VIC-Obs NCEP-2

Surface Skin Temperature

JFM

AMJ

WRF/VIC VIC-Obs NCEP-2

First Layer Soil Temperature

JFM

AMJ

WRF/VIC VIC-Obs NCEP-2

WRF/VIC ------ WRF-noah

Precipitation ---WRF-VIC WRF-noah

WRF2

JFM

AMJ

WRF-VIC

Jan. 1-15

Surface Air Temperature ---WRF-VIC WRF-noah

WRF2

JFM

AMJ

WRF-VIC

Jan. 1-15

Surface Runoff ---WRF-VIC WRF-noah

Snow Water Equivalent Field----WRF-VIC WRF-noah

WRF2

WRF-VIC

Jan. 1-15

JFM

AMJ

Latent Heat ---WRF-VIC WRF-noah

Sensible Heat ---WRF-VIC WRF-noah

Surface Skin Temperature ---WRF-VIC WRF-noahWRF2

First Layer Soil TemperatureWRF-VIC WRF-noahWRF2

Parrellizing VIC land model in CCSM system to improve computing performance.

Implement VIC routing model into RACM

Rout surface and subsurface

runoff into rivers

Future Work

Performing multi-year simulation to evaluate the model

performance