A NUMERICAL STUDY OF TROPICAL DEEP CONVECTION USING WRF MODEL

The Weather Research Forecast model (WRF) configured with high resolution and NCEP 1°×1° reanalysis data were used to simulate the development of a tropical deep convection over the Tiwi Islands,northern Australia,and to investigate the sensitivity of model results to model configuration and parameterization schemes of microphysical processes.The simulation results were compared with available measurements.The results show that the model can reproduce most of the important characteristics of the observed diurnal evolution of the convection,including the initiation of convection along the sea-breeze front,which is then reinforced by downdraft outflows,merging of cells and the formation of a deep convective system.However,further improvement is needed to simulate more accurately the location and the time for initiation of the deep convective system.Sensitivity tests show that double-nesting schemes are more accurate than the non-nesting schemes in predicting the distribution and intensity of precipitation as far as this particular case is concerned.Additionally,microphysical schemes also have an effect on the simulated amount of precipitation.It is shown that the best agreement is reached between the simulation results and observations when the Purdue Lin scheme is used.