1. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 1 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Improved Modeling of Land-Atmosphere Interactions using a Coupled Version of WRF with the Land Information System Jonathan L. Case* 1, Katherine M. LaCasse 2, Joseph A. Santanello Jr. 3, William M. Lapenta 4, and Christa D. Peters-Lidard 5 1 ENSCO, Inc./Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center, Huntsville, AL 2 University of Alabama in Huntsville/SPoRT Center, Huntsville, AL 3 Goddard Space Flight Center/Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center – UMCP, College Park, MD 4 NASA/SPoRT Center, Huntsville, AL 5 Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

2. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 2 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Presentation Outline  Motivation and project goals  Background  Benefits of coupling  Methodology / experiment design  Results –Spin-up runs over Florida for May 2004 –Preliminary coupled runs  Summary / Future Work

3. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 3 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Motivation and Project Goals  Hypothesis: Can short-term mesoscale numerical forecasts of sensible weather elements be improved by using optimally-tuned, high-resolution soil fields?  Project Goals: Investigate and evaluate the potential benefits of using high-resolution land surface data derived from NASA systems and tools on regional short-term numerical guidance (0  24 hours) –Use Goddard’s Land Information System software coupled to the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model –Examine one month period with relatively benign weather Isolate influence of land-atmosphere interactions Choose May 2004 over Florida peninsula

4. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 4 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology The Land Information System (LIS)  Software that runs multiple Land Surface Models (LSMs) efficiently using high-performance computing –Developed at Goddard Space Flight Center –LSMs: Noah, Community Land Model, SiB, VIC, Mosaic –Global, high-resolution datasets (down to 1 km)  User configurable features –“Spin-up” time for soil equilibrium –Input datasets –Atmospheric boundary conditions (i.e. forcings)  NASA 2005 Software of the Year Award

5. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 5 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Coupled LIS-WRF Implementation  Offline LIS spin-up simulation on WRF grid –Run LIS for sufficient time to reach equilibrium state –LIS output at final time  Input to WRF simulation Soil temperature / moisture, snow cover, skin temperature, albedo, & canopy water  WRF atmospheric variables provide forcing to LIS –Surface air temperature, humidity, pressure, wind –Emiss., short/long-wave radiation, precip., & Sfc exchange coeff.  LIS provides land variables to WRF –LIS output variables listed above –Surface & ground fluxes, runoff

6. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 6 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Coupling LIS to WRF: Benefits  Soil initialization consistent with WRF resolution  Capability to optimize surface & soil variables –Tune soil model spin-up time integration –Specify atmospheric forcings Atmospheric reanalysis data In-situ and/or remotely-sensed observations  Can run WRF with other LSMs available in LIS  Framework for introducing new land datasets –E.g. Satellite-derived fields from MODIS

7. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 7 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology LIS Spin-up Simulations using Noah  Integrate LSM long enough to reach soil state equilibrium –Atmospheric forcing from Global Data Assimilation System reanalyses –Multiple simulations of different integration length, all ending 1 May 2004 (2mo, 4mo, 6mo, 9mo, 12mo) –Examine difference fields between successive runs –Deep soil variables should converge to common value  100  200 cm soil moisture  longest time to reach equilibrium  12  9 mo differences  negligible over most of domain

8. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 8 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Control WRF & Coupled LIS-WRF Configuration  Common characteristics –Florida domain with 3-km grid spacing –Noah LSM –24-hour forecasts initialized at 0000 UTC –Atmospheric initial & boundary conditions from NCEP 40-km Eta model  Differences –Control WRF Soil moisture & temp initial conditions from 40-km Eta model Forecasts from standard WRF –Coupled LIS-WRF: Soil moisture & temp initial conditions from 3-km LIS spin-up run Forecasts from coupled LIS-WRF

9. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 9 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology LIS  Control Initial 0  10 cm Soil Moisture Fields Control WRF using 40-km Eta data LIS-WRF more moist over much of domain Coupled LIS-WRF using 3-km LIS data

10. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 10 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Impacts on 2-m Temperature Forecasts LIS  Control Control WRF using 40-km Eta data Coupled LIS-WRF using 3-km LIS data

11. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 11 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Impacts on 2-m Dewpoint Forecasts LIS  Control Control WRF using 40-km Eta data Coupled LIS-WRF using 3-km LIS data

12. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 12 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Summary & Future Work  Tested coupled LIS-WRF on Florida case  9-mo spin-up for land initialization over Florida  Simulated atmosphere sensitive to changes in soil characteristics provided by LIS  Future work –Validate LIS soil temp & moisture fields where possible –Run control & LIS-WRF 24-h forecasts daily for May 2004 –Generate surface verification statistics –Examine impacts on convective initiation (NSSL project) –Include MODIS sea-surface temperatures over water

13. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 13 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Backup Slides

14. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 14 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology Cross sections along FL East Coast (N  S; Shuttle Landing Facility to Miami, 12z to 18z) TemperatureDewpoint

15. Earth Science Division National Aeronautics and Space Administration 18 January 2007 Paper 5A.4: Slide 15 American Meteorological Society 21 st Conference on Hydrology LIS  Control Initial 100  200 cm Soil Moisture More moist Drier Control WRF using 40-km Eta data Coupled LIS-WRF using 3-km LIS data