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Radiance‐Based Evaluation of WRF Cloud Properties Over East Asia: Direct Comparison With FY‐2E Observations
Author(s) -
Yao Bin,
Liu Chao,
Yin Yan,
Zhang Peng,
Min Min,
Han Wei
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1029/2017jd027600
Subject(s) - weather research and forecasting model , radiance , environmental science , atmospheric radiative transfer codes , geostationary orbit , brightness temperature , satellite , meteorology , radiative transfer , atmospheric sciences , precipitation , remote sensing , cloud top , radiometer , brightness , climatology , physics , geography , geology , quantum mechanics , astronomy , optics
Radiance‐based comparison between model‐simulated and satellite‐observed atmosphere shows its unique advantage for model evaluation. This study couples a fast radiative transfer model, namely, the community radiative transfer model, and the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) to generate synthetic satellite observed infrared (IR) brightness temperatures (BTs) over East Asia. Simulated IR BTs are used to evaluate WRF cloud properties by direct comparison with observations from the Visible and Infrared Spin‐Scan Radiometer (onboard the FengYun‐2E geostationary satellite). A deep cyclone over North China is investigated as our case study. The simulated and observed BTs in the 6.8‐μm channel demonstrate agreement with an averaged bias of <3 K, whereas the performances in two IR window channels are relatively poor with averaged BT differences almost 10 K. For typical precipitation regions, BT differences between the 6.8‐ and 10.8‐μm channels indicate that the WRF simulation underestimates low‐ to midlevel clouds but reproduces high‐level clouds better. Overall, the WRF has solid capabilities to capture the cloud characteristics broadly, whereas some limitations are shown in the cloud temporal and variation cloud cover, especially 3 days after the WRF initialization.