Foreword
This User’s Guide describes the Advanced Research WRF (ARW) Version 3.5 modeling system, released in April 2013. As the ARW is developed further, this document will be continuously enhanced and updated. Please send feedback to wrfhelp@ucar.edu.
This document is complementary to the ARW Tech Note (http://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/docs/arw_v3.pdf), which describes the equations, numerics, boundary conditions, and nesting etc. in greater detail.
Highlights of updates to WRFV3.5 include:
· WRF model:
New
physics:
o Grell-Freitas cumulus scheme (contributed by Grell of NOAA)
o GRIMs shallow convection scheme (contributed by Hong, Jang and Lee of YSU, S. Korea)
o Grenier-Bretherton-McCaa (contributed by Perlin of Oregon State Univ)
o NSSL 1-moment microphysics (contributed by Mansell of NSSL)
o CAM 5.1 macrophysics (contributed by PNNL)
o Community Land Model (V4.0) (contributed by Jin of Utah State Univ. and and Y. Lu of University of California at Merced)
o 3D Price-Weller-Pinkel (PWP) ocean model (Lee and Chen of Univ of Miami)
o WRF-Hydrology (contributed by Gochis and Yu of NCAR/RAL)
Others:
o Time-dependent Green-House Gases for several radiation options (contributed by Claire Carouge of UNSW, Australia, and Luis Fita, Universidad de Cantabria, Spain)
o Improvement to NoahMP
o Polar physics update (contributed by Byrd Polar Research Center, U of Ohio)
o Lightning parameterization
o Surface drag scheme for YSU PBL (contributed by U. of Washington)
o Some diagnostic options (contributed by NSSL)
o Perturbed lateral boundary condition
o netCDF4 compression capability support
o NUDAPT dataset for urban modeling (contributed by Glotfelty and Ching of NCSU)
o NLCD2006 landuse dataset for North America (from Gilliam and Pleim of EPA)
o 30 seconds MODIS vegetation fraction dataset
· WRF-DA updates:
o Option to assimilate wind speed/direction (instead of u and v)
o New instruments which can be assimilated: METOP Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI); NPP Advanced Technology Sounder (ATMS); FY3 Microwave Temperature Sounder (MWTS) and Microwave Humidity Sounder (MWHS) (the last two were contributed by Peiming Dong of Chinese Academy of Meteorological Science)
o Precipitation data assimilation in 4D-VAR
o NOAA-19 AMSUA and MHS added
o Improved capability to generate forecast sensitivity to observations
· WRF-Chemistry
o MODIS landuse with chemistry
o More chemistry options work with MEGAN biogenic emission
o CAM-MAM (Modal Aerosol Module)
o Improvement on Madronich photolysis scheme
For the latest version of this document, please visit the ARW Users’ Web site at http://www2.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/.
Contributors to this guide:
Wei Wang, Cindy Bruyère, Michael Duda, Jimy Dudhia, Dave Gill, Michael Kavulich, Kelly Keene, Hui-Chuan Lin, John Michalakes, Syed Rizvi, and Xin Zhang.
Contributors to WRF-Fire chapter:
Jonathan D. Beezley, Janice L. Coen, and Jan Mandel
Contributors to UPP section:
Hui-Ya Chuang, Nicole McKee, Tricia Slovacek, and Jamie Wolff
Special Acknowledgment:
We gratefully acknowledge the late Dr. Thomas T. Warner for his years of research, development, instruction, leadership, and motivation in the field of NWP modeling.