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Influence of cumulus convection and cloud microphysics parameterizations on the prediction of Western Disturbances

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Abstract

The western disturbances (WD) form over the Mediterranean region as extra-tropical low-pressure systems and lose the frontal structure while moving eastward to reach India. These systems bring cold waves, snowfalls, hailstorms and rain over north and north-west India during post monsoon and winter months. The first part (Part A) of the present paper investigates the performance of Advanced Research WRF (ARW) model with 8 combinations of cloud microphysics and cumulus convection schemes in simulating 20 WD cases. These 20 cases were simulated using a single-domain WRF model of horizontal resolution 27 km. The combination of Lin et al. cloud microphysics scheme and Betts–Miller–Janjic cumulus convection scheme (mp2cu2) performs better than other combinations in simulating temperature at 2 m height and precipitation. The performance of the combination of Ferrier (new Eta) microphysics scheme and Betts-Miller-Janjic cumulus convection scheme (mp3cu2) is very close to that of mp2cu2 combination. Analysis of box-whisker plot also shows that the combinations mp2cu2 and mp3cu2 perform better than others. In the second part (Part B) 10 cases are simulated using a double-nested WRF model with inner and outer domain resolutions 9 km and 27 km, respectively. Four cases of part B are simulated with (mp2cu2 and mp3cu2) and without (mp2cu0 and mp3cu0) cumulus convection schemes to understand the response of cloud microphysics to explicit convection and also to select the best combination of cloud microphysics and cumulus convection scheme. The combination mp2cu2 has lower RMSE of precipitation than other combinations. Remaining six cases were then simulated with the combination of mp2cu2 using the double-nested model. Spatial distribution of model simulated and TRMM estimated precipitation agree well in most of the cases. The domain-averaged RMSE of model-simulated precipitation with respect to TRMM 3B42 V7 estimated precipitation varies from 2.89 to 4.12 cm for the six WD cases. The box-whisker diagram shows that the model overestimates the maximum rainfall amount in most of the cases but it is consistent in simulating precipitation over the model domain for all the six cases.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is the outcome of the project sponsored by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. We sincerely thank DST for supporting this project. We are also thankful to The Director, National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting for allowing this project to complete and providing necessary support. We would like to thank TRMM for providing data. The TRMM 3B42 v7 data used in this effort were acquired as part of the activities of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, and are archived and distributed by the Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Service Centre (DISC). The TRMM data have been used for model validation. We thank National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) for making WRF model and the input data freely available. These have been used to study various western disturbance cases.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, Noida, UP, India

    Abhijit Sarkar, Devajyoti Dutta & Paromita Chakraborty

  2. JCSDA/UCAR, Greenbelt, USA

    Surya Kanti Dutta

  3. Galgotias University, Greater Noida, UP, India

    Susmita Majumdar

  4. Department of Physics, Birla Institute of Technology Mesra, Jaipur Campus, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

    Swagata Payra

  5. Department of Geophysics, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, UP, India

    R. Bhatla

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  1. Abhijit Sarkar
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Correspondence to Abhijit Sarkar.

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Sarkar, A., Dutta, D., Chakraborty, P. et al. Influence of cumulus convection and cloud microphysics parameterizations on the prediction of Western Disturbances. Meteorol Atmos Phys 132, 413–426 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-019-00697-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-019-00697-2

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