Publication Abstracts

Molongwane et al. 2020

Molongwane, C., M.-J.M. Bopape, A. Fridlind, T. Motshegwa, T. Matsui, E. Phaduli, B. Sehurutshi, and R. Maisha, 2020: Sensitivity of Botswana Ex-Tropical Cyclone Dineo rainfall simulations to cloud microphysics scheme. Afr. Assoc. Sci. Open Res., 3, 30, doi:10.12688/aasopenres.13062.1.

Numerical weather and climate models rely on the use of microphysics schemes to simulate clouds and produce precipitation at convective scales. It is important that we understand how different microphysics schemes perform when simulating high impact weather to inform operational forecasting.

A heavy rainfall event from 17-20 February 2017 over Botswana were made with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model using four different microphysics schemes. The schemes used were the Weather Research and Forecasting Single Moment 6-class scheme (WSM6); Weather Research and Forecasting Single Moment 5-class scheme (WSM5); Stony Brook University scheme (SBU-YLIN); and Thompson scheme. WSM5 is considered as the least sophisticated of the four schemes, while Thompson is the most sophisticated. Simulations were initialized and forced by the Global Forecast System (GFS), and configured with a grid spacing of 9km over an outer domain and 3km for a nested inner domain without the convection parameterization. The simulations were produced using the University of Botswana and the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) High Performance Computing (HPC) systems.

WSM5 and WSM6 simulations are mostly similar; the presence of graupel in WSM6 did not result in large differences in the rainfall simulations. SBU-YLIN simulated the least amount of rainfall, followed by Thompson. All the schemes captured the north-south rainfall gradient observed on 17 February, but with all simulations rainfall is simulated slightly south of where it was observed. All the schemes overestimated rainfall on 18 February over the central parts of Botswana, and underestimated rainfall on 19 February over most of Botswana.

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BibTeX Citation

@article{mo09200d,
  author={Molongwane, C. and Bopape, M.-J. M. and Fridlind, A. and Motshegwa, T. and Matsui, T. and Phaduli, E. and Sehurutshi, B. and Maisha, R.},
  title={Sensitivity of Botswana Ex-Tropical Cyclone Dineo rainfall simulations to cloud microphysics scheme},
  year={2020},
  journal={Afr. Assoc. Sci. Open Res.},
  volume={3},
  pages={30},
  doi={10.12688/aasopenres.13062.1},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - JOUR
ID  - mo09200d
AU  - Molongwane, C.
AU  - Bopape, M.-J. M.
AU  - Fridlind, A.
AU  - Motshegwa, T.
AU  - Matsui, T.
AU  - Phaduli, E.
AU  - Sehurutshi, B.
AU  - Maisha, R.
PY  - 2020
TI  - Sensitivity of Botswana Ex-Tropical Cyclone Dineo rainfall simulations to cloud microphysics scheme
JA  - Afr. Assoc. Sci. Open Res.
VL  - 3
SP  - 30
DO  - 10.12688/aasopenres.13062.1
ER  -

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