Abstract
This study aims at quantifying seasonal biases of regional climate model outputs during southern African summer, against a dense in situ measurement network (daily rain-gauge and surface air temperature records, and 12 h UTC radiosondes), and uncertainties associated with some physical parameterizations. Using the non-hydrostatic Advanced Research Weather Forecast (WRF) laterally forced by ERA40 reanalysis, twenty-seven experiments configured with three schemes of cumulus (CU), planetary boundary layer (PBL) and microphysics (MP), are performed at 35 km horizontal resolution during the core of a summer rainy season (December 1993 to February 1994 season) representative of the South African rainfall climatology. WRF simulates accurately seasonal large-scale rainfall patterns, as well as seasonal gradients of South African rainfall and 2-m temperature, and seasonal vertical profiles of the air temperature and humidity. However seasonal biases fluctuate strongly from an experiment to another, denoting considerable uncertainties generated by the physical package. Rainfall amounts are the most sensitive parameter to the tested schemes. Their geography, intensity, and intraseasonal characteristics are predominantly sensitive to CU schemes, and much less to PBL and MP schemes. Some CU-PBL combinations produce additive effects, which can dramatically either reduce or increase biases. Satisfactory configurations are found for South African climate, which would not have been possible without testing numerous physical parameterizations.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexandru A, De Elia R, Laprise R (2007) Internal variability in regional climate downscaling at the seasonal scale. Mon Weather Rev 135:3221–3238
Anyah RO, Semazzi FHM (2004) Simulation of the sensitivity of Lake Victoria basin climate to lake surface temperatures. Theor Appl Climatol 79:55–69
Arakawa A (2004) The cumulus parameterization problem: past, present, and future. J Clim 17:2493–2525
Arakawa A, Schubert W (1974) Interaction of a cumulus cloud ensemble with the large-scale environment, part I. J Atmos Sci 31:674–701
Betts AK (1986) A new convective adjustment scheme. Part I: observational and theoretical basis. Q J R Meteorol Soc 112:677–691
Betts AK, Miller MJ (1986) A new convective adjustment scheme. Part II: single column tests using GATE wave, BOMEX, ATEX and arctic air-mass data sets. Q J R Meteorol Soc 112:693–709
Blamey RC, Reason CJC (2009) Numerical simulation of a mesoscale convective system over the east coast of South Africa. Tellus 61:17–34
Bright D, Mullen S (2002) The sensitivity of the numerical simulation of the southwest monsoon boundary layer to the choice of PBL turbulence parameterization in MM5. Weather Forecast 17:99–114
Challa V, Indracanti J, Rabarison M, Patrick C, Baham J, Young J, Hughes R, Hardy M, Swanier S, Yerramilli A (2009) A simulation study of mesoscale coastal circulations in Mississippi Gulf coast. Atmos Res 91:9–25
Chen F, Mitchell K, Schaake J, Xue Y, Pan H, Koren V, Duan Q, Ek M, Betts A (1996) Modeling of land surface evaporation by four schemes and comparison with FIFE observations. J Geophys Res 101:7251–7268
Cook KH (2000) The South Indian Convergence Zone and interannual rainfall variability over Southern Africa. J Clim 13:3789–3804
Cook C, Reason CJC, Hewitson BC (2004) Wet and dry spells within particularly wet and dry summers in the South African summer rainfall region. Clim Res 26:17–31
Crétat J, Richard Y, Pohl B, Rouault M, Reason C, Fauchereau N (2010) Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer. Int J Climatol. doi:10.1002/joc.2266
D’Abreton PC, Lindesay JA (1993) Water vapour over southern Afric during wet and dry early and late summer months. Int J Climatol 13:151–170
D’Abreton PC, Tyson PD (1996) Three-dimensional kinematic trajectory modelling of water vapour transport over southern Africa. Water SA 22:297–306
Dai A (2006) Precipitation characteristics in eighteen coupled climate models. J Clim 19:4605–4630
Denis B, Laprise R, Caya D (2003) Sensitivity of a regional climate model to the resolution of the lateral boundary conditions. Clim Dyn 20:107–126
Diaconescu EP, Laprise R, Sushama L (2007) The impact of lateral boundary data errors on the simulated climate of a nested regional climate model. Clim Dyn 28:333–350
Dudhia J (1989) Numerical study of convection observed during the winter experiment using a mesoscale two-dimensional model. J Atmos Sci 46:3077–3107
Duffy P, Govindasamy B, Iorio J, Milovich J, Sperber K, Taylor K, Wehner M, Thompson S (2003) High-resolution simulations of global climate, part 1: present climate. Clim Dyn 21:371–390
Engelbrecht FA, de Rautenbach CJW, McGregor JL, Katzfey JJ (2002) January and July climate simulations over the SADC region using the limited area model DARLAM. Water SA 28:361–373
Flaounas E, Bastin S, Janicot S (2010) Regional climate modelling of the 2006 West African monsoon: sensitivity to convection and planetary boundary layer parameterisation using WRF. Clim Dyn. doi:10.1007/s00382-010-0785-3
Gallus W Jr (1999) Eta simulations of three extreme precipitation events: sensitivity to resolution and convective parameterization. Weather Forecast 14:405–426
Gochis D, Shuttleworth W, Yang Z (2002) Sensitivity of the modeled North American monsoon regional climate to convective parameterization. Mon Weather Rev 130:1282–1298
Grell GA (1993) Prognostic evaluation of assumptions used by cumulus parameterizations. Mon Weather Rev 121:764–787
Grell GA, Dévényi D (2002) A generalized approach to parameterizing convection combining ensemble and data assimilation techniques. Geophys Res Lett. doi:10.1029/2002GL015311
Harrison MSJ (1984) A generalized classification of South African summer rain-bearing synoptic systems. IJC 4:547–560
Hewitson B, Reason CJC, Tennant W, Jack C, Mackellar N, Lennard C, Hansingo K, Walawege R, Mdoka M (2004) Dynamical modelling of the present and future climate system. Technical Report to the Water Research Commission, Report No. 1154/1/04, Pretoria, South Africa
Hong SY, Lim JOJ (2006) The WRF single-moment 6-class microphysics scheme (WSM6). J Kor Meteorol Soc 42:129–151
Hong SY, Noh Y, Dudhia J (2006) A new vertical diffusion package with an explicit treatment of entrainment processes. Mon Weather Rev 134:2318–2341
Hudson DA, Jones RG (2002) Regional climate model simulations of present-day and future climates of southern Africa. Hadley Centre Technical Note N 39, 42 pp
Im E, Ahn J, Remedio A, Kwon W (2008) Sensitivity of the regional climate of East/Southeast Asia to convective parameterizations in the RegCM3 modelling system. Part 1: focus on the Korean peninsula. Int J Climatol 28:1861–1877
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. In: Solomon S et al. (Eds) Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge. Available at http://www.ipcc.ch/
Iorio J, Duffy P, Govindasamy B, Thompson S, Khairoutdinov M, Randall D (2004) Effects of model resolution and subgrid-scale physics on the simulation of precipitation in the continental United States. Clim Dyn 23:243–258
Janjic ZI (1994) The step-mountain eta coordinate model: further developments of the convection, viscous sublayer, and turbulence closure schemes. Mon Weather Rev 122:927–945
Janjic ZI (2002) Nonsingular implementation of the Mellor–Yamada level 2.5 scheme in the NCEP meso model. NCEP Office Note N 437, 61 pp
Jankov I, Gallus A Jr (2004) Some contrasts between good and bad forecasts of warm season MCS rainfall. J Hydrol 288:122–152
Jankov I, Gallus W Jr, Segal M, Shaw B, Koch S (2005) The impact of different WRF model physical parameterizations and their interactions on warm season MCS rainfall. Weather Forecast 20:1048–1060
Joubert AM, Katzfey JJ, McGregor JL, Ngunyen KC (1999) Simulating midsummer climate over southern Africa using a nested regional climate model. J Geophys Res 104:19015–19025
Jury MR, Nkosi SE (2000) Easterly flow in the Tropical Indian Ocean and climate variability over South-East Africa. Water SA 26:147–152
Jury MR, Mc Queen C, Levey K (1994) SOI and QBO signals in the African region. Theor Appl Climatol 50:103–115
Jury MR, Pathack B, Rautenbach CJDW, Vanheerden J (1996) Drought over South Africa and Indian Ocean SST: statistical and GCM results. Global Ocean Atmos Syst 4:47–63
Kain JS (2004) The Kain–Fritsch convective parameterization: an update. J Appl Meteor 43:170–181
Kimoto M, Yasutomi N, Yokoyama C, Emori S (2005) Projected changes in precipitation characteristics near Japan under the global warming. SOLA 1:85–88
Koren V, Schaake J, Mitchell K, Duan Q, Chen F, Baker J (1999) A parameterization of snowpack and frozen ground intended for NCEP weather and climate models. J Geophys Res 104:19569–19585
Krichak S, Alpert P, Kunin P (2010) Numerical simulation of seasonal distribution of precipitation over the Eastern Mediterranean with a RCM. Clim Dyn 34:47–59
Kumar O, Rao S, Krishna K (2009) Role of cumulus parameterization schemes in simulating heavy rainfall episodes off the coast of Maharashtra state during 28 June-4 July 2007. Meteorol Atmos Phys 105:167–179
Laing AG, Fritsch JM (1997) The global population of mesoscale convective complexes. Q J R Meteorol Soc 123:389–405
Leduc M, Laprise R (2009) Regional climate model sensibility to domain size. Clim Dyn 32:833–854
Leung L, Qian Y, Bian X, Washington W, Han J, Roads J (2004) Mid-century ensemble regional climate change scenarios for the Western United States. Clim Change 62:75–113
Liang XZ, Xu M, Kunkel KE, Grell GA, Kain JS (2007) Regional climate model simulation of U.S.-Mexico summer precipitation using the optimal ensemble of two cumulus parameterizations. J Clim 20:5201–5207
Lim J, Hong S (2005) Effects of bulk ice microphysics on the simulated monsoonal precipitation over East Asia. J Geophys Res. doi:10.1029/2005JD006166
Lindesay JA (1988) South African rainfall, the Southern Oscillation and a Southern Hemisphere semi-annual cycle. Int J Climatol 8:17–30
Liu Y, Guo L, Wu G, Wang Z (2010) Sensitivity of ITCZ configuration to cumulus convective parameterizations on an aqua planet. Clim Dyn 34:223–240
Lynch SD (2003) Development of a raster database of annual, monthly and daily rainfall for Southern Africa. WRC Rep. N 1156/1/03, 78 pp
Lyon B, Mason SJ (2007) The 1997–1998 summer rainfall season in southern Africa. Part I: observations. J Clim 20:5134–5148
Mason SJ (1995) Sea-surface temperature—South African rainfall associations, 1910–1989. Int J Climatol 15:119–135
Mazarakis N, Kotroni V, Lagouvardos K, Argiriou AA (2009) The sensitivity of numerical forecasts to convective parameterization during the warm period and the use of lightning data as an indicator for convective occurrence. Atmos Res 94:704–714
Mellor GL, Yamada T (1982) Development of a turbulence closure model for geophysical fluid problems. Rev Geophys Space Phys 20:851–875
Mlawer E, Taubman S, Brown P, Iacono M, Clough S (1997) Radiative transfer for inhomogeneous atmosphere: RRTM, a validated correlated-k model for the long-wave. J Geophys Res 102:16663–16682
Morrison H, Thompson G, Tatarskii V (2009) Impact of cloud microphysics on the development of trailing stratiform precipitation in a simulated squall line: comparison of one-and two-moment schemes. Mon Weather Rev 137:991–1007
New M, Washington R, Jack C, Hewitson B (2003) Sensitivity of southern African climate to soil-moisture. CLIVAR Exch 8:45–47
Pleim JE (2007a) A combined local and nonlocal closure model for the atmospheric boundary layer. Part I: model description and testing. J Appl Meteor Climatol 46:1383–1395
Pleim JE (2007b) A combined local and nonlocal closure model for the atmospheric boundary layer. Part II: application and evaluation in a mesoscale meteorological model. J Appl Meteor Climatol 46:1396–1409
Poccard I, Janicot S, Camberlin P (2000) Comparison of rainfall structures between NCEP/NCAR reanalyses and observed data over Tropical Africa. Clim Dyn 16:897–915
Pohl B, Richard Y, Fauchereau N (2007) Influence of the Madden-Julian Oscillation on southern African summer rainfall. J Clim 20:4227–4242
Preston-Whyte R, Tyson P (1988) The atmosphere and weather of Southern Africa. Oxford University Press, Cape Town, p 334
Rao Y, Hatwar H, Salah A, Sudhakar Y (2007) An experiment using the high resolution Eta and WRF models to forecast heavy precipitation over India. Pure Appl Geophys 164:1593–1615
Rauscher SA, Seth A, Qian JH, Camargo SJ (2006) Domain choice in an experimental nested modeling prediction system for South America. Theor Appl Climatol 86:229–246
Reason CJC (2001) Subtropical Indian Ocean SST dipole events and Southern African rainfall. Geophys Res Lett 28:2225–2227
Reason CJC (2002) Sensitivity of the southern African circulation to dipole sea-surface temperature patterns in the South Indian Ocean. Int J Climatol 22:377–393
Reason CJC, Jagadheesha D (2005) A model investigation of recent ENSO impacts over southern Africa. Meteorol Atmos Phys 89:181–205
Reason CJC, Rouault M (2002) ENSO-like decadal variability and South African rainfall. Geophys Res Lett 29:16.1–16.4
Rouault M, Richard Y (2003) Intensity and spatial extension of drought in South Africa at different time scales. Water SA 29:489–500
Rouault M, Richard Y (2005) Intensity and spatial extent of droughts in Southern Africa. Geophys Res Lett. doi:10.1029/2005GL022436
Rouault M, Reason CJC, Lutjeharms JRE, Beljaars ACM (2003) Underestimation of latent and sensible heat fluxes above the Agulhas Current in NCEP and ECMWF analyses. J Clim 16:776–782
Schulze R, Maharaj M (2004) Development of a database of gridded daily temperatures for Southern Africa. WRC Rep. N 1156/2/04, 81 pp
Seth A, Giorgi F (1998) The effects of domain choice on summer precipitation simulation and sensitivity in a regional climate model. J Clim 11:2698–2712
Skamarock W, Klemp JB, Dudhia J, Gill D, Barker D, Duda M, Huang X, Wang W, Powers J (2008) A description of the advanced research WRF version 3. NCAR Technical Note, NCAR/TN\u2013475 + STR, 123 pp. http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/docs/arw_v3.pdf
Sylla MB, Gaye AT, Pal JS, Jenkins GS, Bi XQ (2009) High-resolution simulations of West African climate using regional climate model (RegCM3) with different lateral boundary conditions. Theor Appl Climatol 98:293–314
Tadross MA, Hewitson BC, Usman MT (2005a) The interannual variability of the onset of the maize growing season over South Africa and Zimbabwe. J Clim 18:3356–3372
Tadross M, Jack C, Hewitson B (2005b) On RCM-based projections of change in southern African summer climate. Geophys Res Lett. doi:10.1029/2005GL024460
Tadross M, Gutowski W Jr, Hewitson B, Jack C, New M (2006) MM5 simulations of interannual change and the diurnal cycle of Southern African regional climate. Theor Appl Climatol 86:63–80
Tchotchou L, Kamga M (2010) Sensitivity of the simulated African monsoon of summers 1993 and 1999 to convective parameterization schemes in RegCM3. Theor Appl Climatol 100:207–220
Tennant W (2003) An assessment of intraseasonal variability from 13-yr GCM simulations. Mon Weather Rev 131:1975–1991
Todd MC, Washington R (1998) Extreme daily rainfall in southern African and southwest Indian Ocean tropical-temperate links. S Afr J Sci 94:64–70
Todd MC, Washington R, Palmer PI (2004) Water vapour transport associated with tropical-temperate trough systems over Southern Africa and the Southwest Indian Ocean. Int J Climatol 24:555–568
Trenberth KE (1991) Climate diagnostics from global analyses: conservation of mass in ECMWF analyses. J Clim 4:707–722
Trenberth KE, Stepaniak P, Hurrell JW, Fiorino M (2001) Quality of reanalyses in the Tropics. J Clim 14:1499–1510
Tyson PD (1986) Climatic change and variability in Southern Africa. Oxford University Press, Cape Town, p 220
Uppala SM, Kallberg PW, Simmons AJ, Andrae U, Bechtold VDC, Fiorino M, Gibson JK, Haseler J, Hernandez A, Kelly GA, Li X, Onogi K, Saarinen S, Sokka N, Allan RP, Andersson E, Arpe K, Balmaseda MA, Beljaars ACM, Van de Berg L et al (2005) The ERA-40 re-analysis. Q J R Meteorol Soc 131:2961–3012
Vigaud N, Richard Y, Rouault M, Fauchereau N (2007) Water vapour transport from the tropical Atlantic and summer rainfall in tropical southern Africa. Clim Dyn 28:113–123
Vigaud N, Richard Y, Rouault M, Fauchereau N (2009) Moisture transport between the South Atlantic Ocean and Southern Africa: relationships with summer rainfall and associated dynamics. Clim Dyn 32:113–123
Wakazuki Y, Kanada S, Muroi C, Hashimoto A, Kato T, Nakamura M, Noda A, Yoshizaki M, Yasunaga K (2007) Regional climate projection experiments on the Baiu frontal activity around the Japan islands using a non-hydrostatic cloud-system-resolving model. J Earth Sim 8:13–25
Waliser D, Gautier C (1993) A satellite-derived climatology of the ITCZ. J Clim 6:2162–2174
Wang W, Seaman N (1997) A comparison study of convective parameterization schemes in a mesoscale model. Mon Weather Rev 125:252–278
Wehner M, Smith R, Bala G, Duffy P (2010) The effect of horizontal resolution on simulation of very extreme US precipitation events in a global atmosphere model. Clim Dyn 34:241–247
Williams C, Kniveton D, Layberry R (2010) Assessment of a climate model to reproduce rainfall variability and extremes over Southern Africa. Theor Appl Climatol 99:9–27
Wisse J, Vilà-Guerau de Arellano J (2004) Analysis of the role of the planetary boundary layer schemes during a severe convective storm. Ann Geophys 22:1861–1874
Wolter K, Timlin MS (1993) Monitoring ENSO in COADS with a seasonally adjusted principal component index. 17th Climate Diagnostics Workshop Norman, OK, NOAA/NMC/CAC, NSSL, Oklahoma Clim. Survey, CIMMS and the School of Meteor., University of Oklahoma: 52–57
Xie P, Janowiak JE, Arkin PA, Adler R, Gruber A, Ferraro R, Huffman GJ, Curtis S (2003) GPCP pentad precipitation analyses: an experimental dataset based on gauge observations and satellite estimates. J Clim 16:2197–2214
Zanis P, Douvis C, Kapsomenakis I, Kioutsioukis I, Melas D, Pal JS (2009) A sensitivity study of the regional climate model (RegCM3) to the convective scheme with emphasis in Central Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Theor Appl Climatol 97:327–337
Acknowledgments
Rainfall and 2-m air temperature was provided by the South African Water Research Commission. Radiosondes are available freely from the Wyoming University web site (http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html). ECMWF ERA-40 data was provided by the ECMWF Meteorological Archival and Retrieval System (MARS) Data Server. WRF was provided by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/wrf/users/download/get_source.html). The authors are grateful to Sivarajan Sijikumar, Thierry Castel, Pascal Roucou and Nicolas Vigaud for helpful discussions on WRF. Calculations were performed using HPC resources from DSI-CCUB (Université de Bourgogne).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Crétat, J., Pohl, B., Richard, Y. et al. Uncertainties in simulating regional climate of Southern Africa: sensitivity to physical parameterizations using WRF. Clim Dyn 38, 613–634 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1055-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1055-8