Scale Dependence of Land-Atmosphere Interactions in Wet and Dry Regions as Simulated with NU-WRF over the Southwestern and South-Central United States.

ABSTRACT: Large-scale forcing and land-atmosphere interactions on precipitation are investigated with NASA-Unified WRF (NU-WRF) simulations during fast transitions of ENSO phases from spring to early summer of 2010 and 2011. The model is found to capture major precipitation episodes in the 3-month simulations without resorting to nudging. However, the mean intensity of the simulated precipitation is underestimated by 46% and 57% compared with the observations in dry and wet regions in the southwestern and south-central United States, respectively. Sensitivity studies show that large-scale atmospheric forcing plays a major role in producing regional precipitation. A methodology to account for moisture contributions to individual precipitation events, as well as total precipitation, is presented under

SUBMITTER: Zhou Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7430199 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature