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“ How Reliable is the Couple of WRF & VIC Models”
Citation:
Tang, C. AND R. Dennis. “ How Reliable is the Couple of WRF & VIC Models”. Presented at AGU Fall Meeting, San Franciso, CA, December 09 - 13, 2013.
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) Atmospheric Modeling and Analysis Division (AMAD) conducts research in support of EPA mission to protect human health and the environment. AMAD research program is engaged in developing and evaluating predictive atmospheric models on all spatial and temporal scales for forecasting the air quality and for assessing changes in air quality and air pollutant exposures, as affected by changes in ecosystem management and regulatory decisions. AMAD is responsible for providing a sound scientific and technical basis for regulatory policies based on air quality models to improve ambient air quality. The models developed by AMAD are being used by EPA, NOAA, and the air pollution community in understanding and forecasting not only the magnitude of the air pollution problem, but also in developing emission control policies and regulations for air quality improvements.
Description:
The ability of the fully coupling of Weather Research & Forecasting Model (WRF) and Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model to produce hydrological and climate variables was evaluated. First, the VIC model was run by using observed meteorological data and calibrated in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) from 1980 to 2010. Subsequently, a simulation based on an offline linkage of WRF and VIC was performed in the UMRB with the calibrated parameters established above from 2006 to 2009. Lastly, a simulation of fully coupled WRF and VIC through a coupler was performed in the UMRB. The performance of the fully couple of WRF and VIC was assessed with respect to key simulated variables through a comparison with the offline couple of WRF and VIC models, and well calibrated VIC model. Spatiotemporal comparisons of the simulated evaporation (ET), soil moisture (SM), runoff, and baseflow produced by the VIC calibrated run (base data), offline coupling, and fully coupling run were conducted. The results showed that: 1) the fully couple of VIC with WRF was able to achieve good agreement in the simulation of soil moisture and evaporation, 2) The fully coupling has significant improvement in simulation of runoff and baseflow in compare with the results from offline coupling. These suggest the VIC coupling should function without causing a large change in the moisture budget.