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The spatiotemporal variability of precipitation over the Himalaya: evaluation of one-year WRF model simulation

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Abstract

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used to simulate the spatiotemporal distribution of precipitation over central Asia over the year April 2005 through March 2006. Experiments are performed at 6.7 km horizontal grid spacing, with an emphasis on winter and summer precipitation over the Himalaya. The model and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission show a similar inter-seasonal cycle of precipitation, from extratropical cyclones to monsoon precipitation, with agreement also in the diurnal cycle of monsoon precipitation. In winter months, WRF compares better in timeseries of daily precipitation to stations below than above 3-km elevation, likely due to inferior measurement of snow than rain by the stations, highlighting the need for reliable snowfall measurements at high elevations in winter. In summer months, the nocturnal precipitation cycle in the foothills and valleys of the Himalaya is captured by this 6.7-km WRF simulation, while coarser simulations with convective parameterization show near zero nocturnal precipitation. In winter months, higher resolution is less important, serving only to slightly increase precipitation magnitudes due to steeper slopes. However, even in the 6.7-km simulation, afternoon precipitation is overestimated at high elevations, which can be reduced by even higher-resolution (2.2-km) simulations. These results indicate that WRF provides skillful simulations of precipitation relevant for studies of water resources over the complex terrain in the Himalaya.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Climate and Large-scale Dynamics Program, from the National Science Foundation (NSF award-AGS 1116105) and by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters under the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship Program (Grant Number 13-EARTH13F-26). The CFSR data used in this research were developed by NCEP and provided by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), available at http://rda.ucar.edu/pub/cfsr.html. TRMM data were acquired by an international joint project sponsored by the Japan National Space Development Agency (NASDA) and the NASA Office of Earth Science, available at http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov. High-performance computing support from Yellowstone (ark:/85065/d7wd3xhc) was provided by NCAR’s Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL), sponsored by the NSF. Thanks to the anonymous reviewers whose comments have greatly improved our manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth Research Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Jesse Norris, Leila M. V. Carvalho, Charles Jones & Forest Cannon

  2. Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

    Leila M. V. Carvalho, Charles Jones & Forest Cannon

  3. Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24–25, 14467, Potsdam-Golm, Germany

    Bodo Bookhagen

  4. Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council, Corso Fiume 4, 10133, Torino, Italy

    Elisa Palazzi

  5. Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan

    Adnan Ahmad Tahir

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Norris, J., Carvalho, L.M.V., Jones, C. et al. The spatiotemporal variability of precipitation over the Himalaya: evaluation of one-year WRF model simulation. Clim Dyn 49, 2179–2204 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3414-y

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