MPAS-Atmosphere  2014 Tropical Cyclone Forecast Experiment

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The MPAS group in MMM/NESL/NCAR is performing a real-time TC prediction experiment with MPAS-Atmosphere from 1 August to 31 October 2014. Daily 10-day forecasts are being produced initialized from the 0 UTC GFS analysis. Three different meshes are being used: (1) A quasi-uniform 15 km (mean cell spacing) mesh. (2) A variable-resolution mesh (60 - 15 km cell spacing) with the high-resolution region centered over the Atlantic.  (3) A variable-resolution mesh (60 - 15 km cell spacing) with the high-resolution region centered over the Western Pacific.  The mesh spacings for the variable-resolution meshes are depicted below.

The 15 km mesh uses 2,621,442 cells to tile the sphere (i.e. cells on a horizontal plane), and the variable-resolution meshes use 535,554 cells to tile the sphere.  The physics used in these forecasts, taken from the WRF model, are Surface Layer: (Monin Obukhov): module_sf_sfclay.F as in WRF 3.5. PBL: YSU as in WRF 3.4.1. Land Surface Model (NOAH 4-layers): as in WRF 3.3.1. Gravity Wave Drag: none Convection:  Tiedtke Microphysics: WSM6: as in WRF 3.5 Radiation: RRTMG sw as in WRF 3.4.1;  RRTMG lw as in WRF 3.4.1 Ocean Mixed Layer: modified from WRFV3.6