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Characterizing NWP Model Errors Using Doppler-lidar Measurements of Recurrent Regional Diurnal Flows: Marine-air Intrusions Into The Columbia River Basinmarine-air Intrusions Into The Columbia River Basin

Abstract

Ground-based Doppler-lidar instrumentation provides atmospheric wind data at dramatically improved accuracies and spatial/temporal resolutions. These capabilities have provided new insights into atmospheric flow phenomena, but they also should have a strong role in NWP model improvement. Insight into the nature of model errors can be gained by studying recurrent atmospheric flows, here a regional summertime diurnal sea breeze and subsequent marine-air intrusion into the arid interior of Oregon-Washington, where these winds are an important wind-energy resource. These marine intrusions were sampled by three scanning Doppler lidars in the Columbia-River Basin as part of the Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP2), using data from summer 2016. Lidar time-height cross sections of wind speed identified eight days when the diurnal-flow cycle, (peak wind speeds at midnight, afternoon minima) was obvious and strong. Eight-day composite time-height cross sections of lidar wind speeds are used to validate those generated by the operational NCEP-HRRR model. HRRR simulated the diurnal wind cycle, but produced errors in the timing of onset and significant errors due to a premature nighttime demise of the intrusion flow, producing low-bias errors of 6 m s?1. Day-to-day and in the composite, whenever a marine intrusion occurred, HRRR made these same errors. The errors occurred under a range of gradient wind conditions indicating that they resulted from the misrepresentation of physical processes within a limited region around the measurement locations. Because of their generation within a limited geographical area, field-measurement programs can be designed to find and address the sources of these NWP errors.

Article / Publication Data
Active/Online
YES
Status
FINAL PRINT PUBLICATION
Volume
148
Available Metadata
Accepted On
December 05, 2019
DOI ↗
Fiscal Year
NOAA IR URL ↗
Peer Reviewed
YES
Publication Name
Monthly Weather Review
Published On
February 01, 2020
Final Online Publication On
February 01, 2020
Final Print Publication On
March 01, 2020
Publisher Name
American Meteorological Society
Print Volume
148
Print Number
3
Page Range
929–953
Issue
3
Submitted On
June 12, 2019
Project Type
LAB SUPPORTED
URL ↗

Authors

Authors who have authored or contributed to this publication.