Atmospheric transport simulations in support of the Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE)
This paper describes the atmospheric modeling that underlies the Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) science analysis, including its meteorological and atmospheric transport components (polar variant of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and Stochastic Time Inverted...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2015-04-01
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Series: | Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
Online Access: | http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/4093/2015/acp-15-4093-2015.pdf |
Summary: | This paper describes the atmospheric modeling that underlies the Carbon in
Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) science analysis,
including its meteorological and atmospheric transport components (polar
variant of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and Stochastic Time
Inverted Lagrangian Transport (STILT) models), and provides WRF validation
for May–October 2012 and March–November 2013 – the first 2 years of the
aircraft field campaign. A triply nested computational domain for WRF was
chosen so that the innermost domain with 3.3 km grid spacing encompasses the
entire mainland of Alaska and enables the substantial orography of the state
to be represented by the underlying high-resolution topographic input field.
Summary statistics of the WRF model performance on the 3.3 km grid indicate
good overall agreement with quality-controlled surface and radiosonde
observations. Two-meter temperatures are generally too cold by approximately
1.4 K in 2012 and 1.1 K in 2013, while 2 m dewpoint temperatures are too
low (dry) by 0.2 K in 2012 and too high (moist) by 0.6 K in 2013. Wind
speeds are biased too low by 0.2 m s<sup>−1</sup> in 2012 and 0.3 m s<sup>−1</sup> in
2013. Model representation of upper level variables is very good. These
measures are comparable to model performance metrics of similar model
configurations found in the literature. The high quality of these
fine-resolution WRF meteorological fields inspires confidence in their use to
drive STILT for the purpose of computing surface influences ("footprints")
at commensurably increased resolution. Indeed, footprints generated on a
0.1° grid show increased spatial detail compared with those on the
more common 0.5° grid, better allowing for convolution with flux
models for carbon dioxide and methane across the heterogeneous Alaskan
landscape. Ozone deposition rates computed using STILT footprints indicate
good agreement with observations and exhibit realistic seasonal variability,
further indicating that WRF-STILT footprints are of high quality and will
support accurate estimates of CO<sub>2</sub> and CH<sub>4</sub> surface–atmosphere
fluxes using CARVE observations. |
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ISSN: | 1680-7316 1680-7324 |