Evaluation of boundary layer structure in several operational and research weather prediction models

During the summers of 2002 and 2003 NOAA’s Environmental Technology Laboratory (ETL) deployed a network of remote sensing and in-situ instrumentation in New England for the purpose of evaluating boundary layer and surface layer parameterizations in operational and research weather prediction models. The instrumentation included seven 915 MHz wind profilers with RASS, and surface meteorology including solar and net radiation. In collaboration with the National Weather Service’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and with NOAA’s Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL), measurements from these instruments were compared, on an hourly basis in real-time during the experiments, against predictions made by operational models, including the Eta, GFS, and RUC models, as well as the experimental NMM and WRF models. Results from these field programs will be presented, focusing on the model’s skills at predicting convective boundary layer growth, the nocturnal low-level jet, surface temperature, clouds, and radiation. The relative strengths and weaknesses in the various models parameterizations of boundary layer processes will be discussed. Finally, a brief description of a similar but expanded field program underway during the summer of 2004 will be given.