Evaluation of WRF Performance for Depicting Orographically-Induced Gravity Waves in the Stratosphere

Abstract

Orographically-induced gravity (buoyancy) waves can propagate through the tropopause to the lower stratosphere causing disruptions to high altitude aircraft operations. To forecast this high altitude turbulence (HAT) in real time, there is a need to determine optimal model nesting, vertical resolution, upper boundary conditions and diffusion to be able to detect these situations. Besides investigating the above mentioned model options, the WRF-ARW will be closely configured to the operational version used by the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA). To perform the model evaluation, a case from a field experiment conducted at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) in southeastern France between 22 November and 5 December 2004 will be examined. Using a forecast initialized from 00 UTC 23 November, it will be determined how well waves generated by a north/south Mistral type flow over the French Alps north of OHP are represented by the model.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 15, 2007
Accession Number
ADA486391

Entities

People

  • Douglas C. Hahn

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Altitude
  • Boundaries
  • Boundary Layer
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Diffusion
  • Gravity
  • Gravity Waves
  • High Altitude
  • Layers
  • Measurement
  • Stratified Fluids
  • Stratosphere
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Turbulence
  • Waves

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.
  • Atmospheric Science/Meteorology

Technology Areas

  • Space