Evaluation of Planetary Boundary Layer Scheme Sensitivities for the Purpose of Parameter Estimation

Abstract Meteorological model errors caused by imperfect parameterizations generally cannot be overcome simply by optimizing initial and boundary conditions. However, advanced data assimilation methods are capable of extracting significant information about parameterization behavior from the observations, and thus can be used to estimate model parameters while they adjust the model state. Such parameters should be identifiable, meaning that they must have a detectible impact on observable aspects of the model behavior, their individual impacts should be a monotonic function of the parameter values, and the various impacts should be clearly distinguishable from each other. A sensitivity analysis is conducted for the parameters within the Asymmetrical Convective Model, version 2 (ACM2) planetary boundary layer (PBL) scheme in the Weather Research and Forecasting model in order to determine the parameters most suited for estimation. A total of 10 candidate parameters are selected from what is, in general, an...

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