Performance of a Very High-Resolution Global Forecast System Model (GFS T1534) at 12.5 Km Over the Indian Region During the 2016–2017 Monsoon Seasons
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J. Earth Syst. Sci. (2019) 128:155 c Indian Academy of Sciences https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-019-1186-6 Performance of a very high-resolution global forecast system model (GFS T1534) at 12.5 km over the Indian region during the 2016–2017 monsoon seasons P Mukhopadhyay1,* ,VSPrasad2, R Phani Murali Krishna1, Medha Deshpande1, Malay Ganai1, Snehlata Tirkey1, Sahadat Sarkar1, Tanmoy Goswami1, C J Johny2, Kumar Roy1, M Mahakur1, V R Durai3 and M Rajeevan4 1 Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Dr Homi Bhabha Road, Pashan, Pune 411 008, India. 2National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, A-50, Sector-62, Noida, UP, India. 3India Meteorological Department, Mausam Bhavan, Lodi Road, New Delhi 110 003, India. 4Ministry of Earth Science, Government of India, Prithvi Bhavan, New Delhi 110 003, India. *Corresponding author. e-mail: [email protected] [email protected] MS received 1 September 2018; revised 17 March 2019; accepted 20 March 2019; published online 4 June 2019 A global forecast system model at a horizontal resolution of T1534 (∼12.5 km) has been evaluated for the monsoon seasons of 2016 and 2017 over the Indian region. It is for the first time that such a high-resolution global model is being run operationally for monsoon weather forecast. A detailed validation of the model therefore is essential. The validation of mean monsoon rainfall for the season and individual months indicates a tendency for wet bias over the land region in all the forecast lead time. The probability distribution of forecast rainfall shows an overestimation (underestimation) of rainfall for the lighter (heavy) categories. However, the probability distribution functions of moderate rainfall categories are found to be reasonable. The model shows fidelity in capturing the extremely heavy rainfall categories with shorter lead times. The model reasonably predicts the large-scale parameters associated with the Indian summer monsoon, particularly, the vertical profile of the moisture. The diurnal rainfall variability forecasts in all lead times show certain biases over different land and oceanic regions and, particularly, over the north–west Indian region. Although the model has a reasonable fidelity in capturing the spatio- temporal variability of the monsoon rain, further development is needed to enhance the skill of forecast of a higher rain rate with a longer lead time. Keywords. High-resolution global forecast system; GFS model; monsoon rain; verification. 1. Introduction in terms of better power and improved eastward propagation of the Madden–Julian oscillation (as In the past several decades, there has been intraseasonal variability) has been aptly shown by significant improvement in the skill of weather fore- a non-hydrostatic icosahedral atmospheric model casting using numerical weather prediction models. (Sato et al. 2005; Miura et al. 2015). Rajen- It is demonstrated globally that enhanced reso- dran and Kitoh (2008) have shown that the sea- lution of the general circulation models (GCM) sonal mean climate simulations have improved in improves the model fidelity. The increased skill high-resolution models. It is also reported that 1 0123456789().,--: vol V 155 Page 2 of 18 J. Earth Syst. Sci. (2019) 128:155 community atmosphere models with higher T574L64 model produced 1-day gain in forecast resolution have shown improvement of simulation skill compared to the T382L64 model (Prasad for the systems associated with large-scale circula- et al. 2014). In order to have a uniform data set tion (Hack et al. 2006). Williamson et al. (1995) (comparable skill) for a longer period that can showed that many nonlinear driving processes of be used for climate-related studies, a retrospective large-scale motion are represented better in high- analysis is carried out with the model configura- resolution models. Also, the European Centre for tion of T574L64 from 2000 to 2011 (Prasad et al. Medium Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) Inte- 2017). At present, Hybrid 4D Ens-Var assimila- grated Forecast System (IFS) model at a 10-km tion with the T1534L64 model resolution has been resolution simulates the observed tropical cyclone used in operational weather forecasts since 2017 frequency and intensity more reasonably than April. its coarser resolution versions (Manganello et al. It is worthy to mention that from 2010 onwards, 2012). an operational seasonal forecast based on the In the past, only a few global centres explored dynamical coupled model, National Centre for the GCM for operational forecasting having res- Environmental Prediction (NCEP) CFSv2 (Cli- olution lesser than 100 km, mainly due to the mate Forecast System version 2 model) was used limitation of computational resources. Recently, at a T382 (∼35 km) resolution for the Indian sum- leading global operational centres, e.g., ECMWF mer monsoon (ISM) forecast (June–July–August– inducted very high-resolution GCM (with a 9-km September) (Dandi et al. 2016). Along with the resolution for deterministic and 16 km for ensem- development of a dynamical seasonal forecast mo- ble prediction) for 10 days weather forecast. Many del, an extended range multi-model (CFS/GFS) previous studies have reported the increasing ten- ensemble forecast system has also been devel- dencies of extreme events (Goswami et al. 2006; oped to issue forecast up to four pentads. The Rajeevan et al. 2008; Roxy et al. 2017 and the ref- seasonal and extended range forecast system devel- erences therein) over the Indian region. Kim et al. oped under ‘Monsoon Mission’ of Ministry of Earth (2018) highlighted the importance of the high- Science, Government of India, has been found to resolution models to capture the extreme rainfall be very effective in enhancing the skill of forecast, events over the Indian region. In India, the econ- particularly, for the agricultural sector. Extended omy is largely dependent on agriculture (Gadgil range forecast has also been found to be use- and Gadgil 2006) vis-`a-vis the summer monsoon ful for providing warnings of heat wave anomalies rainfall, and this as such becomes the major factor and extreme rainfall with three pentads lead times behind the need for monsoon research for improved (Borah et al. 2015; Joseph et al. 2018). prediction. The operational forecasting in India While the seasonal forecast is able to provide was based on a global forecast system (GFS) with a skilful forecast of ISM over the country as a Eulerian (EL) dynamical core model at 27 km reso- whole and the extended range forecast provides lution. Hence there was a need to improve the skill weekly anomalies over the region up to four pen- of weather forecast, in general, and for the extreme tads, there was an increasing demand, particularly, events, in particular, using the numerical model at from the agro-met services of the India Meteorolog- higher spatial resolution. ical Department to provide forecast advisories for In India, the generation of medium-range a period of around 10 days at the sub-district level. forecasts was started at National Centre for The increasing frequency of flood due to extreme Medium Range Weather Forecast (NCMRWF) in rain (Nandargi and Gaur 2015) over the major 1994 using the T80L18 global data assimilation Indian cities was also a point of concern. Keeping and forecasting system. In the course of time, particularly the requirement for a high-resolution assimilated volume of data and model resolution forecast over the country to enhance the services increased considerably as a result of improve- and extend it to the sub-district level, a state- ments in the model, observing system and the of-the-art very high-resolution NCEP GFS model data reception system. Major improvements in (semi-Lagrangian (SL)) at T1534 (∼12.5 km) has forecasting skill were observed in 2010 with the been established. In the present study, the eval- introduction of the T382L64 model configuration uation of the high-resolution model skill over and further upgradation to T574L64 on compar- the Indian region for two monsoon seasons ison with previous versions of the model (Prasad (2016–2017) has been carried out for the first et al. 2011). In the 2011 monsoon period, the time. J. Earth Syst. Sci. (2019) 128:155 Page 3 of 18 155 2. Model, observation and methodology NCEP (http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/GFS/doc. php). The GFS model dynamical core is based In order to fulfil the requirement for the block on a two time-level semi-implicit SL discretisa- level forecast in India, a very high-resolution deter- tion approach (Sela 2010), while the physics is ministic GFS with spectral resolution of T1534 done in the linear, reduced Gaussian grid in the (∼12.5 km) with 64 hybrid vertical levels (top horizontal space. It is the first time that the SL layer around 0.27 hPa) has been implemented for dynamical core (previously EL) is implemented in daily operational forecast since June 2016. The the GFS T1534 for operational forecast over India, global atmospheric model in GFS is a global spec- equivalent to other global operational centres, tral model (GSM) version 13.0.2, adopted from namely, ARPEGE (Meteo France), GEM (Environ- ment Canada), GFS (NCEP, USA), GSM (Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)), IFS (ECMWF), MetUM (United Kingdom Met. Office), etc. The major advantage of the SL framework over the EL approach is that it is an unconditionally sta- ble scheme which accurately captures waves with high phase speed and sufficient accuracy. It also saves lot of computational time as compared to the EL framework due to longer time steps. A detailed description of the benefits of the SL approach is described in detail in the study by Staniforth and Cˆot´e (1991). Figure 1 and table 1 describe the schematic of GFS T1534 and the description of model physics, respectively. The ini- tial conditions for the forecast are generated by the NCMRWF through the global data assimila- tion system (GDAS) cycle which has more Indian data in it.