Dynamic downscaling of near-surface air temperature at the basin scale using WRF–a case study in the Heihe River Basin, China

doi:10.1007/s11707-012-0306-2

Front Earth Sci

2012, Vol. 6

Issue (3) : 314-323 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-012-0306-2

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Dynamic downscaling of near-surface air temperature at the basin scale using WRF–a case study in the Heihe River Basin, China

Xiaoduo PAN(

), Xin Li, Xiaokang SHI, Xujun HAN, Lihui LUO, Liangxu WANG

Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China

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Abstract

The spatial resolution of general circulation models (GCMs) is too coarse to represent regional climate variations at the regional, basin, and local scales required for many environmental modeling and impact assessments. Weather research and forecasting model (WRF) is a next-generation, fully compressible, Euler non-hydrostatic mesoscale forecast model with a run-time hydrostatic option. This model is useful for downscaling weather and climate at the scales from one kilometer to thousands of kilometers, and is useful for deriving meteorological parameters required for hydrological simulation too. The objective of this paper is to validate WRF simulating 5 km/1 h air temperatures by daily observed data of China Meteorological Administration (CMA) stations, and by hourly in-situ data of the Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research Project. The daily validation shows that the WRF simulation has good agreement with the observed data; the R² between the WRF simulation and each station is more than 0.93; the absolute of meanbias error (MBE) for each station is less than 2°C; and the MBEs of Ejina, Mazongshan and Alxa stations are near zero, with R² is more than 0.98, which can be taken as an unbiased estimation. The hourly validation shows that the WRF simulation can capture the basic trend of observed data, the MBE of each site is approximately 2°C, the R² of each site is more than 0.80, with the highest at 0.95, and the computed and observed surface air temperature series show a significantly similar trend.

Keywords weather research and forecasting model dynamic downscaling surface air temperature Heihe River Basin Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research Project

Corresponding Author(s): PAN Xiaoduo,Email:panxiaoduo@lzb.ac.cn

Issue Date: 05 September 2012

Cite this article:

Lihui LUO,Liangxu WANG,Xiaoduo PAN, et al. Dynamic downscaling of near-surface air temperature at the basin scale using WRF–a case study in the Heihe River Basin, China[J]. Front Earth Sci, 2012, 6(3): 314-323.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/10.1007/s11707-012-0306-2
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/Y2012/V6/I3/314

Fig.1 Nesting domain configuration for the numerical experiment (the crosses indicate CMA stations, the red dots indicate WATER stations)

Tab.1 Geographic and annual mean surface air temperatures at the validation stations

Fig.2 Spatial distribution map of 2 m temperature from 2003 to 2009

Fig.3 Difference of the average 2 m temperature of every year from that of total years

Fig.4 Scatter plots of daily surface air temperature between the WRF simulation and station observation

Tab.2 MBE, RMSE and between the WRF simulated daily surface air temperature and 15 CMA stations data

Fig.5 Scatter plots of hourly surface air temperature between the WRF simulation and WATER observation

Fig.6 Comparison of hourly surface air temperatures among the WRF-simulated, bilinear interpolation and observed data for the Arou station

Tab.3 MBE, RMSE and between the WRF simulated hourly surface air temperature and seven WATER in-situ data

Tab.4 Features of JRA-25, ERA-40 and NCEP-II

Fig.7 Comparison of the MBE of the surface air temperatures between the observed and three reanalysis and WRF simulations in the Heihe River Basin (JRA-25, ERA-40 and NCEP-II: monthly MBE for ten years (1991–2000), WRF simulation: daily MBE for 2008)

Fig.8 Comparison of the relationship between (a) WRF simulation, (b) NCEP reanalysis, and (c) JRA reanalysis data for the Arou station in August

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