OMEGA was used to explore the impact of high-resolution surface characteristics datasets on the quality of the wind and temperature forecasts, during a weakly forced summer-time scenario. In this web-page, results from modeling experiments performed to support a field experiment organized and conducted by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), during 15-31 July 2001 are presented.
The experiment region (indicated by the yellow rectangle in the following figure) covered the central Chesapeake Bay. The figure also shows the grid structure of OMEGA, resolving the bay and several major rivers flowing into the bay. The white edges indicate land/water boundaries in the OMEGA grid.
Special surface observations were taken at several sites in the experiment region. The paper concentrates on one specific day during the experiment period in which weak synoptic forcing was observed. The model results were compared against observations to obtain mean, mean absolute and root mean squared errors of temperature, dew point, wind speed and wind direction. The results show the significance of including accurate surface characteristics data such as the sea surface temperature (SST) and land-use definitions in the model initial conditions.
Paper on Coastal Meteorology (129kb PDF file): This paper was presented at the 12th Joint Conference on Applications of Air Pollution Meteorology, May 20-24, 2002, held at Norfolk, VA, by the American Meteorological Society.
Winds over the Chesapeake Bay Region (Animation, 49 frames, 6.5 MB): This animation shows the near-surface wind field over a 48-hour simulation period. The background color represents surface temperature.
Vapor Convergence and Vorticity (Animation, 49 frames, 29 MB): This animation shows the evolution of sea/land-breeze circulations using vorticity as an indicator. Convective activity along the coastal convergence zones are evident in the water vapor saturation ratio displayed in the cut-plane.