C43A-0369:
Validation of snow cover simulated by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model using in-situ snow survey data in the Altai Mountains
Thursday, 18 December 2014
Konosuke Sugiura1,2, Hideyuki Kitabata2 and Tsutomu Kadota2, (1)University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan, (2)JAMSTEC Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Kanagawa, Japan
Abstract:
Seasonal snow water equivalent (SWE) is important for an estimate of water storage in the hydrological cycle, prediction of snow disaster, water resources, and so on. Satellite observation technique is valuable but has the coarse footprint such as 25 km spacing generally. In this study, numerical simulation model is applied to estimate the SWE in the presence of spatial variability. To begin with, we examined validity of the SWE simulated by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Snow surveys in the Altai Mountain were carried out, and the in-situ snow data were manually collected during the maximum SWE season each year. We compared the SWE simulated by the WRF model (ver. 3.3) with that collected by the in-situ snow surveys in the Altai Mountains during four years (2008, 2011, 2012, and 2013). The results show that the agreement with in-situ snow survey data is good. Based on this, this presentation will also describe characteristics of the simulated SWE distribution in the Altai Mountains.
