H111-0015
NWM V3.0 Alaska Domain Expansion: Overview, Forcing Evaluation and Initial Model Testing
Friday, 11 December 2020
Poster
Wanru Wu1, Aubrey L Dugger2, Arezoo Rafieeinasab2, Yongxin Zhang2, Yuqiong Liu1,3, Xia Feng4, Fernando Renzo Salas5, Kevin Michael Sampson6, David P Streubel7, Cham Pham8, Zhengtao Cui3,9, Molly McAllister2, Trude Eidhammer2, Joe Grim10, Matthew Casali2, Carl Trypaluk11, Xuning Tan12, Michael St Laurent11, Dennis Miller1, Sandra Pavlovic13, Jessica E Cherry14, Benjamin Crane Johnson15, Scott Lindsey15, Brian A. Cosgrove16, David Gochis2, Trey Flowers17 and Mark Glaudemans18, (1)NOAA/NWS/OWP, Silver Spring, MD, United States, (2)National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States, (3)LEN Technologies, Oak Hill, VA, United States, (4)UCAR/NWC, Tuscaloosa, AL, United States, (5)NOAA National Water Center, Tuscaloosa, AL, United States, (6)National Center for Atmospheric Research, Research Applications Laboratory, Boulder, CO, United States, (7)NWS Alaska River Forecast Ctr, Hage, United States, (8)NOAA/NWS/NWC, Silver Spring, MD, United States, (9)National Weather Service Silver Spring, Silver Spring, MD, United States, (10)NCAR, Boulder, CO, United States, (11)UCAR/OWP, Silver Spring, MD, United States, (12)NOAA/NWS, Office of Water Prediction, Silver Spring, MD, United States, (13)UCAR/OWP, State College, PA, United States, (14)National Weather Service, Alaska Pacific River Forecast Center, Anchorage, United States, (15)NOAA National Weather Service Alaska-Pacific River Forecast Center, Anchorage, AK, United States, (16)NOAA/NWS Office of Water Prediction, Silver Spring, MD, United States, (17)NOAA/NWS Office of Water Prediction, National Water Center, Tuscaloosa, AL, United States, (18)NOAA, NWS Office of Water Prediction, Silver Spring, MD, United States
Abstract:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Water Model (NWM) V3.0 will feature a domain expansion to South Central Alaska that covers the Cook Inlet and Copper River Basins. The NWM is based on the community WRF-Hydro software architecture, and is collaboratively developed via the joint efforts of the NOAA Office of Water Prediction (OWP) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). With the NWM modeling domain expanded from the Contiguous United States (CONUS) to the Canadian portion of the Great Lakes, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, adding the Alaska domain not only expands water forecasting coverage for the U.S. public as a whole, but also enhances the capability of the NWM to simulate and forecast in cold climate regions. In the initial stage of the domain expansion, consistent and integrated geospatial datasets are being developed to support model execution (e.g. channel and catchment definitions, soil parameters, glacier coverage etc.), the atmospheric forcings are being identified, evaluated and tested, and preliminary baseline hydrologic and glacier modeling runs are being executed to support improved physics and parameter modifications.
This presentation will provide a high-level overview of the Alaska domain expansion. Additionally, it will focus on the atmospheric forcing options that will be used by the NWM V3.0 Alaska forcing engine, including the retrospective forcing Analysis of Record for Calibration (AORC) for the model benchmark experiment and calibration, and the real-time forcing High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) and Global Forecast System (GFS) for the short-range and medium-range hydrologic forecasts, respectively. The main emphasis will be on the evaluation of precipitation against the available Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) station observations and Stage IV precipitation analysis over the NWM Alaska modeling domain. The application of the data in initial model testing will be examined, focusing on questions including how precipitation biases and uncertainties impact hydrologic model performance.
