10.3    Regional MPAS and WRF: Comparison and Evaluation

Chen, Ming, May Wong, Bill Skamarock, and Wei Wong, National Center for Atmospheric research

To evaluate the performance of regional MPAS relative to WRF, 72-hr simulations of regional MPAS are compared with WRF simulations over winter and spring periods using similar domains and configurations. In total 40 forecasts have performed using MPAS and WRF, and results of the two models are compared with each other and verified against GFS analyses. The physics schemes used in the two models are identical, and are components of the shared physics for WRF and MPAS. We find that the two models produce quite similar simulations. Statistically, spatial patterns of surface temperature, precipitation and wind fields are consistent between the two model simulations. Vertical distributions of deviations of temperature and water vapor content from the GFS analysis also have similar patterns. Skill scores of precipitation simulation by MPAS and WRF are computed. A strong winter storm case shows that the performance of the two models is similar for this strong winter storm. Precipitation simulations over the Great Lakes region, where the storm swept across, are compared. Both models can well reproduce the spatial distribution of total amount of precipitation during the storm process; time series of domain-average precipitation indicates that the two models yield consistent evolution of the storm process.