The Turbulent Kinetic Energy (TKE) scheme in the NWP models at Météo-France

Since February 2009, the operational global model ARPEGE an d the limited area model ALADINMF use a prognostic variable TKE (Turbulent Kinetic Energy) for the computation of the exchange coefficient for the turbulent mixing instead of the first orde r schemeLouis et al.(1981). It was necessary to associate a mass flux scheme (KFB) for the shallow convecti on Bechtold et al.(2001), to the TKE schemeCuxart et al.(2000), to replace the pseudo shallow convection parameterizati on Geleyn(1987) which is based of the modification of the Richardson number in the Louis’ turbulence scheme.