The Jefferson Project at Lake George: Operational, very-large-eddy simulations of a watershed

The Jefferson Project is a new endeavor at Lake George, NY by IBM Research, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and The Fund for Lake George. Lake George is an oligotrophic lake - one of low nutrients - and a 30-year study recently published by RPI's Darrin Fresh Water Institute highlighted the renowned water quality is declining from the injection of salt (from runoff), algae, and invasive species. In response, the Jefferson Project is developing a system to provide extensive data on relevant physical, chemical and biological parameters that drive ecosystem function. The system will be capable of real-time observations and interactive modeling of the atmosphere, watershed hydrology, lake circulation and food web dynamics.

In this presentation, we introduce the Jefferson Project and describe the development of the operational forecast system used to simulate the atmosphere in the model stack, Deep Thunder (a configuration of the WRF model). The model performs 48-hr forecasts twice daily in a nested configuration with four domains; the innermost domain has dx = 333 m and no boundary-layer parameterization (i.e., a very-large-eddy simulation). Observations from a network of recently installed weather sensors in the watershed are used for data assimilation and validation. We discuss the model's ability to forecast precipitation (an input into the hydrology model) and lake surface conditions (an input into the lake model) during different weather events, and briefly present a case study on the development of an internal seiche observed within the lake.