Evaluating of FV3-SAR model to predict South America atmospheric convective scale events

• Grant number: 19/18845-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: December 22, 2019
• End date: July 10, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences - Meteorology
• Principal Investigator: José Antonio Aravéquia
• Grantee: José Antonio Aravéquia
• Host Investigator: Jacob R. Carley
• Host Institution: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE). Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação (Brasil). São José dos Campos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), United States

Abstract

The present proposal describes the objectives related to the study of characterization of convective scale weather events aiming to improve South America weather forecast. FV3-GFS introduced to operation a new dynamical core variable resolution grid forecasting system at United States NCEP_NOAA. This dynamical core was developed at the GFDL NOAA and it was defined as the base of the Next Generation Forecast Model, and it is available to CPTEC/INPE (Center for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies, National Institute for Space Research) in terms of research and development cooperation agreement. As pointed out by Gustafsson et al. (2018) as conclusion of reviewing of operational centers challenges, a research effort must be done to make further progress in development of data assimilation for convective-scale. It is known that some events that affect the South America weather are more difficult to forecast than others, such as those which growth phases interact with the orography of the Andes, cyclone genesis, mesoscale convective systems and the South America Convergence Zone. All these events have in common convective scale systems immerse in the large scale synoptic flow. Representation of such small scale system in the analysis is an important research subject. This research proposal aims to advance the knowledge on how to better reproduce relevant weather events over South America within high resolution data assimilation and numerical forecast model. One effort will be applied to identify structures/information that are missed (or mistreated) in the analyses/forecasts versus observational data and to study the use of dual covariance localization to improve the representation of the missing structures. To achieve this objective, results from FV3-SAR analyses/forecasts will be evaluated to understand how the higher resolution finite volume model performs to forecast complex structures events that occur over Brazil. This project is in accordance with the mission of CPTEC/INPE, which is to provide Brazil with the state of the art of numerical weather forecasting, as well as with the objective of INPE's Graduate Program in Meteorology to increase capacity in research and knowledge in their research areas. (AU)