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Sensitivity of resolved mountain drag to model resolution for MAP case‐studies
Author(s) -
Smith S. A.,
Doyle J. D.,
Brown A. R.,
Webster S.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1256/qj.05.67
Subject(s) - mesoscale meteorology , drag , geology , crest , wave drag , magnitude (astronomy) , surface pressure , parasitic drag , meteorology , climatology , mechanics , physics , optics , oceanography , astronomy
Seven mountain wave case‐studies from the Mesoscale Alpine Programme (MAP) have been used to investigate the behaviour of the resolved Alpine pressure drag with model horizontal resolution. Three independent modelling systems show that the magnitude of the resolved surface pressure drag increases monotonically as the horizontal model resolution is increased from 125 km down to a few kilometres. A substantial proportion of the drag will still need to be parametrized in the next generation of mesoscale models, with horizontal resolutions of 3 or 4 km. This is particularly true for the most important drag cases, when the jet stream directly above the mountains produces larger wind speeds near mountain crest level, resulting in much larger total Alpine drags. Copyright © 2006 Royal Meteorological Society