The efficiency of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for simulating typhoons

Abstract

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model includes various configuration options related to physics parameters, which can affect the performance of the model. In this study, numerical experiments were conducted to determine the best combination of physics parameterization schemes for the simulation of sea surface temperatures, latent heat flux, sensible heat flux, precipitation rate, and wind speed that characterized typhoons. Through these experiments, several physics parameterization options within the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model were exhaustively tested for typhoon Noul, which originated in the South China Sea in November 2008. The model domain consisted of one coarse domain and one nested domain. The resolution of the coarse domain was 30 km, and that of the nested domain was 10 km. In this study, model simulation results were compared with the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) data set. Comparisons between predicted and control data were made through the use of standard statistical measurements. The results facilitated the determination of the best combination of options suitable for predicting each physics parameter. Then, the suggested best combinations were examined for seven other typhoons and the solutions were confirmed. Finally, the best combination was compared with other introduced combinations for wind-speed prediction for typhoon Washi in 2011. The contribution of this study is to have attention to the heat fluxes besides the other parameters. The outcomes showed that the suggested combinations are comparable with the ones in the literature. © Author(s) 2014.