Open AccessAtmospheric water parameters measured by a ground‐based microwave radiometer and compared with the WRF model
Author(s) -
Cossu Federico,
Hocke Klemens,
Martynov Andrey,
Martius Olivia,
Mätzler Christian
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
atmospheric science letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.951
H-Index - 45
ISSN - 1530-261X
DOI - 10.1002/asl.583
Subject(s) - weather research and forecasting model , microwave radiometer , environmental science , radiometer , atmospheric sciences , meteorology , microwave , water vapor , climatology , remote sensing , physics , geology , quantum mechanics
The microwave radiometer TROWARA measures integrated water vapour ( IWV ) and integrated cloud liquid water ( ILW ) at Bern since 1994 with a time resolution of 7 s. In this study, we compare TROWARA measurements with a simulation of summer 2012 in Switzerland performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting ( WRF ) model. It is found that the WRF model agrees very well with TROWARA 's IWV variations with a mean bias of only 0.7 mm. The ILW distribution of the WRF model, although similar in shape to TROWARA 's distribution, overestimates the fraction of clear sky periods (83% compared to 60%).