Performance Evaluation of Various Parameterization Schemes in Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model : A Case Study Subtropical Urban Agglomeration National Capital Region (NCR), India

Abstract:

Meteorological parameters play a very significant and crucial role in simulating regional air quality. This study has been carried to evaluate the performance of WRF model to various combinations of physical parameterization schemes for predicting surface and upper air meteorology around the capital city of India, Delhi popularly known as National Capital Region (NCR). Eight sensitivity experiments has been conducted to find the best combination of the parameterization schemes for the study area during summer (4^th - 18^th April, 2010 ) season. The model predicted surface temperatures at 2m, relative humidity at 2m and wind speeds at 10m are compared with the observations from Central Pollution Control Board (at Dwarka and Shadipur monitoring stations) and Indian Meteorological Department (VIDP and VIDD stations) whereas the upper-air potential temperature profile and wind speed profile are validated using Wyoming Weather Web data archive at VIDD station. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of simulations indicate that for temperature and relative humidity, the combination consisting of Yonsei Unversity (YSU) as the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) scheme, the Monin Obhukhov as the surface layer (SL) scheme along with NOAH land surface model (LSM) has been found to be performing better than other combinations. The combination consisting of Mellor Yamada Janjic (Eta) as the PBL scheme, Monin Obhukhov Janjic (Eta) as the SL scheme and Noah LSM performs reasonably well in reproducing the observed wind conditions. This indicates that the selection of parameterization schemes may depend on the intended application of the model for a given region.