TITLE:
Assimilation of GPS RO Refractivity Data and Its Impact on Simulations of Trade Wind Inversion and a Winter Cold Front
AUTHORS:
Chunhua Zhou, Yi-Leng Chen
KEYWORDS:
GPS RO, WRF-3DVAR, NWP
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Science,
Vol.6 No.8,
April
28,
2014
ABSTRACT: Assimilation of
Global Positioning System (GPS) Radio Occultation (RO) refractivity based on
WRF-3DVAR is applied to numerical weather predictions (NWP) in Hawaii, where
limited conventional observations and poor representation of local circulations
in global analysis constrain the quality of numerical weather predictions. For
a summer trade wind case, with GPS RO refractivity assimilated, the trade wind
inversion is better predicted. For a winter cold front case, the propagation of
the cold front is also better simulated when GPS RO refractivity is
assimilated. Furthermore, the moist tongue associated with the cold front is
better defined and the vertical profiles of temperature and moisture are
largely improved when compared to the model run without GPS RO assimilation.