E.I.F. de Bruijn

Bio: E.I.F. de Bruijn is an academic researcher from Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. The author has contributed to research in topics: HIRLAM & Planetary boundary layer. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 9 publications receiving 1221 citations.

A High Resolution Air Mass Transformation Model for Short-Range Weather Forecasting

Abstract: This paper describes a high resolution air mass transformation (AMT) model. The model is intended for short-range weather forecasts of the temperature and humidity profiles in the lower atmosphere, the structure of the boundary layer, the boundary layer height, and the amount of boundary layer clouds. The AMT model consists of a one-dimensional, multilayer boundary layer model, which is advected along trajectories from a source region to a receptor point. The trajectories are calculated within a larger scale (limited area) model. The initial profiles for temperature and humidity are obtained from observed radiosondes. The paper describes the physical and dynamical background of the model. With the model we have made case studies of the development of stratocumulus over the North Sea, and have simulated the representation of clear skies over land. The output of the model is compared with the output of the ECMWF model and the current operational bulk AMT model. Sensitivity of the model to boundary ...

Evaluation of the Diurnal Cycle in the atmospheric boundary layer over land as represented by a variety of single-column models: The second GABLS Experiment

Abstract: We present the main results from the second model intercomparison within the GEWEX (Global Energy and Water cycle EXperiment) Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study (GABLS). The target is to examine the diurnal cycle over land in today’s numerical weather prediction and climate models for operational and research purposes. The set-up of the case is based on observations taken during the Cooperative Atmosphere-Surface Exchange Study-1999 (CASES-99), which was held in Kansas, USA in the early autumn with a strong diurnal cycle with no clouds present. The models are forced with a constant geostrophic wind, prescribed surface temperature and large-scale divergence. Results from 30 different model simulations and one large-eddy simulation (LES) are analyzed and compared with observations. Even though the surface temperature is prescribed, the models give variable near-surface air temperatures. This, in turn, gives rise to differences in low-level stability affecting the turbulence and the turbulent heat fluxes. The increase in modelled upward sensible heat flux during the morning transition is typically too weak and the growth of the convective boundary layer before noon is too slow. This is related to weak modelled near-surface winds during the morning hours. The agreement between the models, the LES and observations is the best during the late afternoon. From this intercomparison study, we find that modelling the diurnal cycle is still a big challenge. For the convective part of the diurnal cycle, some of the first-order schemes perform somewhat better while the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) schemes tend to be slightly better during nighttime conditions. Finer vertical resolution tends to improve results to some extent, but is certainly not the solution to all the deficiencies identified.

Evaluation of Limited-Area Models for the Representation of the Diurnal Cycle and Contrasting Nights in CASES-99

Abstract: This study evaluates the ability of three limited-area models [the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University–National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesoscale Model (MM5), the Coupled Ocean– Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS), and the High-Resolution Limited-Area Model (HIRLAM)] to predict the diurnal cycle of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) during the Cooperative Atmosphere–Surface Exchange Study (CASES-99) experimental campaign. Special attention is paid to the stable ABL. Limited-area model results for different ABL parameterizations and different radiation transfer parameterizations are compared with the in situ observations. Model forecasts were found to be sensitive to the choice of the ABL parameterization both during the day and at night. At night, forecasts are particularly sensitive to the radiation scheme. All three models underestimate the amplitude of the diurnal temperature cycle (DTR) and the near-surface wind speed. Furthermore, they overestimate the stable boundary layer height for windy conditions and underestimate the stratification of nighttime surface inversions. Favorable parameterizations for the stable boundary layer enable rapid surface cooling, and they have limited turbulent mixing. It was also found that a relatively large model domain is required to model the Great Plains low-level jet. A new scheme is implemented for the stable boundary layer in the MediumRange Forecast Model (MRF). This scheme introduces a vegetation layer, a new formulation for the soil heat flux, and turbulent mixing based on the local scaling hypothesis. The new scheme improves the representation of surface temperature (especially for weak winds) and the stable boundary layer structure.

Intercomparison of single-column models for GABLS3: preliminary results

Abstract: The GEWEX Atmospheric Boundary-Layer Study (GABLS) focus on the representation of stable boundary layers in atmospheric models (Holtslag, 2006). One of the main goals of GABLS is to provide a mondial platform for the atmospheric boundary layer research community through the organisation of model intercomparisons. Here we focus on single column models (SCM's), which can be both research models and SCM's derived from operational weather and climate models. Two SCM intercomparison case studies have been performed so far. One highly idealised case over snow with prescribed surface temperature (Cuxart et al., 2006) and a second case based on observations taken during the CASES 99 stable boundary layer experiment also with prescribed surface temperature (Svensson and Holtslag, 2007). In these studies it was found that especially the complexity of real world boundary conditions and the lack of interaction with the surface makes it difficult to confront the models with observed evaluation parameters. A reasonable ideal case was found in the long observational dataset of the meteorological site Cabauw in the Netherlands (Baas et al., 2008). To make comparison with observations possible care was taken to prescribe realistic advective tendency terms to the SCM's (Bosveld et al., 2008). These were estimated from both local observations and hind casts of several 3D NWP models. The specific characteristics of the Cabauw site with its flat topography (van Ulden and Wieringa, 1995; Beljaars and Bosveld, 1997) makes it well suited to study decoupling around sunset, inertial oscillation and low level jet and the morning time transition to convective conditions (Angevine et al. 2002). Preliminary results will be presented of an intercomparison between SCM's and an evaluation of the models with observations from the Cabauw site. Special attention in this study is on the moment of decoupling around sunset, the inertial oscillation and the morning time transition.

Numerical study of convection observed during the Winter Monsoon Experiment using a mesoscale two-dimensional model [presentation]

Abstract: Abstract A two-dimensional version of the Pennsylvania State University mesoscale model has been applied to Winter Monsoon Experiment data in order to simulate the diurnally occurring convection observed over the South China Sea. The domain includes a representation of part of Borneo as well as the sea so that the model can simulate the initiation of convection. Also included in the model are parameterizations of mesoscale ice phase and moisture processes and longwave and shortwave radiation with a diurnal cycle. This allows use of the model to test the relative importance of various heating mechanisms to the stratiform cloud deck, which typically occupies several hundred kilometers of the domain. Frank and Cohen's cumulus parameterization scheme is employed to represent vital unresolved vertical transports in the convective area. The major conclusions are: Ice phase processes are important in determining the level of maximum large-scale heating and vertical motion because there is a strong anvil componen...

Oceanic vertical mixing: A review and a model with a nonlocal boundary layer parameterization

Abstract: If model parameterizations of unresolved physics, such as the variety of upper ocean mixing processes, are to hold over the large range of time and space scales of importance to climate, they must be strongly physically based. Observations, theories, and models of oceanic vertical mixing are surveyed. Two distinct regimes are identified: ocean mixing in the boundary layer near the surface under a variety of surface forcing conditions (stabilizing, destabilizing, and wind driven), and mixing in the ocean interior due to internal waves, shear instability, and double diffusion (arising from the different molecular diffusion rates of heat and salt). Mixing schemes commonly applied to the upper ocean are shown not to contain some potentially important boundary layer physics. Therefore a new parameterization of oceanic boundary layer mixing is developed to accommodate some of this physics. It includes a scheme for determining the boundary layer depth h, where the turbulent contribution to the vertical shear of a bulk Richardson number is parameterized. Expressions for diffusivity and nonlocal transport throughout the boundary layer are given. The diffusivity is formulated to agree with similarity theory of turbulence in the surface layer and is subject to the conditions that both it and its vertical gradient match the interior values at h. This nonlocal “K profile parameterization” (KPP) is then verified and compared to alternatives, including its atmospheric counterparts. Its most important feature is shown to be the capability of the boundary layer to penetrate well into a stable thermocline in both convective and wind-driven situations. The diffusivities of the aforementioned three interior mixing processes are modeled as constants, functions of a gradient Richardson number (a measure of the relative importance of stratification to destabilizing shear), and functions of the double-diffusion density ratio, Rρ. Oceanic simulations of convective penetration, wind deepening, and diurnal cycling are used to determine appropriate values for various model parameters as weak functions of vertical resolution. Annual cycle simulations at ocean weather station Papa for 1961 and 1969–1974 are used to test the complete suite of parameterizations. Model and observed temperatures at all depths are shown to agree very well into September, after which systematic advective cooling in the ocean produces expected differences. It is argued that this cooling and a steady salt advection into the model are needed to balance the net annual surface heating and freshwater input. With these advections, good multiyear simulations of temperature and salinity can be achieved. These results and KPP simulations of the diurnal cycle at the Long-Term Upper Ocean Study (LOTUS) site are compared with the results of other models. It is demonstrated that the KPP model exchanges properties between the mixed layer and thermocline in a manner consistent with observations, and at least as well or better than alternatives.

Bulk Parameterization of Air–Sea Fluxes: Updates and Verification for the COARE Algorithm

Abstract: In 1996, version 2.5 of the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) bulk algorithm was published, and it has become one of the most frequently used algorithms in the air–sea interaction community. This paper describes steps taken to improve the algorithm in several ways. The number of iterations to solve for stability has been shortened from 20 to 3, and adjustments have been made to the basic profile stability functions. The scalar transfer coefficients have been redefined in terms of the mixing ratio, which is the fundamentally conserved quantity, rather than the measured water vapor mass concentration. Both the velocity and scalar roughness lengths have been changed. For the velocity roughness, the original fixed value of the Charnock parameter has been replaced by one that increases with wind speeds of between 10 and 18 m s−1. The scalar roughness length parameterization has been simplified to fit both an early set of NOAA/Environmental Technology Laboratory (ETL) experiments and...

RegCM4 : model description and preliminary tests over multiple CORDEX domains

Abstract: A new version of the RegCM regional climate modeling system, RegCM4, has been recently developed and made available for public use. Compared to previous versions, RegCM4 includes new land surface, planetary boundary layer, and air–sea flux schemes, a mixed convection and tropical band configuration, modifications to the pre-existing radiative transfer and boundary layer schemes, and a full upgrade of the model code towards improved flexibility, portability, and user friendliness. The model can be interactively coupled to a 1D lake model, a simplified aerosol scheme (including organic carbon, black carbon, SO4, dust, and sea spray), and a gas phase chemistry module (CBM-Z). After a general description of the model, a series of test experiments are presented over 4 domains prescribed under the CORDEX framework (Africa, South America, East Asia, and Europe) to provide illustrative examples of the model behavior and sensitivities under different climatic regimes. These experiments indicate that, overall, RegCM4 shows an improved performance in several respects compared to previous versions, although further testing by the user community is needed to fully explore its sensitivities and range of applications.