5 March 2010
page last updated: 26 March 2010
Coupling of Atmosphere-Snow Modeling for the Arctic
Sarah Byam
Northern View of Brooks Range.
Credit: Sarah Byam
Abstract
A variety of science and management questions in the Arctic require knowledge of snow distributions and blowing snow conditions. A new project is described that begins by comparing two different snow schemes in a weather forecast model. The atmosphere model is the Weather Research and Forecasting model used by both the operational weather prediction and scientific communities. However, the default snow models in the WRF package, which are part of either the Noah or the RUC land surface schemes, neglect redistribution of snow via wind. Snow redistribution is known to be a key process in the evolution of the annual snow pack across Alaska’s North Slope and will be included during a later phase of this project. The first part of a three phase study is shown here, wherein the performance of the current snow schemes in the WRF model are evaluated.
