Development of a fully integrated water cycle model: HydroGeoSphere-Weather Research and Forecasting (HGS-WRF)

Dr. Jason H Davison, PhD, Catholic University of America, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington, DC, United States, Hyoun-Tae Hwang, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada; Aquanty Inc., Waterloo, ON, Canada, Edward A Sudicky, University of Waterloo, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Waterloo, ON, Canada and John C Lin, University of Utah, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
Abstract:
Recent advances in modern process-based hydrological models have drastically outpaced the capabilities of current-generation land surface schemes (LSS) found within atmospheric and climate models. In order to improve climate simulations and, in particular, more accurately represent the hydrological cycle, we suggest implementing state-of-the-art integrated surface/subsurface hydrological models as advanced LSS. This study explores the coupling process of HydroGeoSphere (HGS), a finite-element control volume variably saturated subsurface and surface water model with energy transport processes, to Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF), a finite difference fully-compressible nonhydrostatic mesoscale climate model. Our flexible coupling method advances water cycle modeling by tightly integrating the moisture fluxes between the subsurface, surface, and atmospheric domains. We expect to increase the overall modeling skill of precipitation and moisture fluxes between domains.
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