RT Journal Article
T1 Numerical Simulation of a Heavy Precipitation Event in the Vicinity of Madrid-Barajas International Airport: Sensitivity to Initial Conditions, Domain Resolution, and Microphysics Parameterizations
A1 Bolgiani, Pedro
A1 Fernández González, Sergio
A1 Valero Rodríguez, Francisco
A1 Merino, Andrés
A1 García Ortega, Eduardo
A1 Sánchez, José Luis
A1 Martín, María Luisa
AB Deep convection is a threat to many human activities, with a great impact on aviation safety. On 7 July 2017, a widespread torrential precipitation event (associated with a cut-off low at mid-levels) was registered in the vicinity of Madrid, causing serious flight disruptions. During this type of episode, accurate short-term forecasts are key to minimizing risks to aviation. The aim of this research is to improve early warning systems by obtaining the best WRF model setup. In this paper, the aforementioned event was simulated. Various model configurations were produced using four different physics parameterizations, 3-km and 1-km domain resolutions, and 0.25 degrees and 1 degrees initial condition resolutions. Simulations were validated using data from 17 rain gauge stations. Two validation indices are proposed, accounting for the temporal behaviour of the model. Results show significant differences between microphysics parameterizations. Validation of domain resolution shows that improvement from 3 to 1 km is negligible. Interestingly, the 0.25 degrees resolution for initial conditions produced poor results compared with 1 degrees. This may be linked to a timing error, because precipitation was simulated further east than observed. The use of ensembles generated by combining different WRF model configurations produced reliable precipitation estimates.
PB MDPI
SN 2073-4433
YR 2018
FD 2018-09
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/12981
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/12981
LA eng
NO © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the framework of the SAFE-FLIGHT research project (CGL2016-78702-C2-1-R and CGL2016-78702-C2-2-R).
NO Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO)
DS Docta Complutense
RD 7 may 2024