Performance of long-term integrations of the Japan Meteorological Agency nonhydrostatic model using the spectral boundary coupling method

Abstract

The spectral boundary coupling (SBC) method, which is an approach used to couple a limited-area model with a large-scale model, was introduced into a nonhydrostatic model. To investigate whether the SBC method works well in a long-term integration of a high-resolution nonhydrostatic model, two numerical experiments were conducted with a model having a horizontal grid interval of 5 km. In one experiment, the SBC method was employed, while it was not in the other experiment. The time integration in both experiments was over a 40-day period. The nonhydrostatic model was nested into objectively analyzed fields, instead of the forecasts from an extended-area model. Predicted patterns of sea level pressure and precipitation were compared with objective analyses, and data provided by the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), respectively. The predicted rainfall amounts and surface temperature over the Japanese islands were statistically evaluated, making use of the analyzed rainfall and surface data observed by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). All results examined in the present study exhibited better performances with use of the SBC method than those without the SBC method. It was found that the SBC method was highly useful in long-term simulations by a high-resolution nonhydrostatic model. © 2005 American Meteorological Society.