Evaluations on Profiles of the Eddy Diffusion Coefficients through Simulations of Super Typhoons in the Northwestern Pacific

• Main Authors: Jimmy Chi Hung Fung, Guangze Gao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2016-01-01
• Series: Advances in Meteorology
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/2397873

The modeling of the eddy diffusion coefficients (also known as eddy diffusivity) in the first-order turbulence closure schemes is important for the typhoon simulations, since the coefficients control the magnitude of the sensible heat flux and the latent heat flux, which are energy sources for the typhoon intensification. Profiles of the eddy diffusion coefficients in the YSU planetary boundary layer (PBL) scheme are evaluated in the advanced research WRF (ARW) system. Three versions of the YSU scheme (original, K025, and K200) are included in this study. The simulation results are compared with the observational data from track, center sea-level pressure (CSLP), and maximum surface wind speed (MWSP). Comparing with the original version, the K200 improves the averaged mean absolute errors (MAE) of track, CSLP, and MWSP by 6.0%, 3.7%, and 23.1%, respectively, while the K025 deteriorates the averaged MAEs of track, CSLP, and MWSP by 25.1%, 19.0%, and 95.0%, respectively. Our results suggest that the enlarged eddy diffusion coefficients may be more suitable for super typhoon simulations.