The Regional and Urban Numerical Weather Prediction and Operational Long Range Plan

of the Meteorological Service of Canada

Dr. Gilbert BrunetMeteorological Research Branch

Meteorological Service of CanadaEnvironnment Canada

Challenges in Urban Meteorology: A Forum for Users and Providers21 September 2004Aknowledgement: Desgagné, Bélair, Mailhot and Roch

Outline of the talk… Who we are

Multi-scale meteorological modeling

Numerical weather prediction now, in one year and ten years:

Two examples of importance for urban area

-Hurricanes

- Urban meteorology and air quality

Future R&D challenges

Who we are Canadian Meteorological Centre and Meteorological

Research Branch is the– Canadian equivalent to US NOAA NWS NCEP and

US Navy FNMOC for numerical weather prediction– Canadian equivalent to LLNL NARAC for multi-

scale atmospheric transport and dispersion modeling

Equivalent centres within the World Meteorological Organization : Washington (USA), Bracknell (UK), Toulouse (FR), Melbourne (AU), Tokyo (JP)

Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) Forecasting & Modelling System

2004-2014

Regional and Mesoscale Forecast ( 24-48 h, 10-24 km )

& Data assimilation

Medium-range Forecast ( 240 h, 10 to 100 km )

& Data assimilation

Middle Atmosphere Model &

Data assimilation

Regional Climate Model

Monthly Forecast

Multi- Seasonal Forecast

Ensemble Forecast

Limited-Area Model 0-24h 1-4km

& Data assimilation

S P A C E

S C A L E

TIME SCALE

Micro-meteorology (10m-1km)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Year

Mo

del

Res

olu

tio

n (

km)

Uniform resolution Variable resolution Hydrostatic Nonhydrostatic Global Limited-area Distributed memory--------------------------------- 3D Var Data Assimilation 4D Var Data Assimilation Ensemble Kalman Filter Operational forecast Emergency response Volcanic ash Air quality Stratospheric ozone Wave model Coupling to oceanographic simulations etc

Hurricane Juan28 September 2003Halifax

75°N

110°W 10°E5°N

Hurricane climatology

Improving Hurricane Forecasting

Grid of GEM for global Numerical weather Prediction (33 km horizontal resolution)

Instantaneous precipitation rate (mm/hr) for the Operational GEM modelA 5 day animation (20/01/2002 to 25/01/2002) (HR=100km, TR=45 min.)

Instantaneous precipitation rate (mm/hr) for the Meso-Global GEM modelA 5 day animation (20/01/2002 to 25/01/2002) (HR=33km, TR= 15 min.)

• 25 time more powerful than the IBM cluster at the Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC)

• Available in 5~10 years from now at CMC

Canada-Japan Collaboration

Tropical PhaseClass2 Hurricane

ET Phase

985 hPa

964 hPa

September 1998: Classified as a very active TC period

Modelling the Full Lifecycle ofHurricane Earl (Sept 1998)at 1km Resolution with MC2 Model (Canadian equivalent to US MM5)

-Humidity at 350m height is shown over Gulf of Mexico for the first 12 hours of the simulation.-Only 1% of the simulation domain is shown!

REPRESENTATION of URBAN SURFACES in Meteorological

Service of Canada ATMOSPHERIC MODELS

From CCRS

Meteorological Service of CanadaEnvironment Canada RPN

Operational Representation of Urban Surfaces at the Canadian Meteorological Center (CMC):

New Opportunities

In the higher resolution convective scale models that are on the verge of being operationally implemented at CMC, it will become increasingly important to correctly represent physical processes over urban surfaces.

This is not the case in the short and medium-range weather forecast systems currently operational at CMC, in which even large urban areas (e.g., 50 km x 25 km) would have a negligible impact on the atmospheric circulations produced by the models.

GLOBAL medium-range forecasts

~ 100 kmUrban area does not even covera single grid point of the model !

REGIONAL short-range forecasts

~ 25 kmUrban area covers 2 model gridpoints.

LOCAL convective scale models

~ 1 kmUrban area covers a largenumber of points (50x25=1250)

As the resolution increase, you need to consider new ‘details’ such as….

What you need is more thana high resolution topography…Need to develop a new Physics parameterizationscheme (Town EnergyBudget or TEB, details in the surface characteristics e.g.heat, momentum and moisturefluxes)

Meteorological Service of CanadaEnvironment Canada RPN

The Joint Urban 2003 Experiment

Atmospheric dispersion study

28 June to 31 July 2003

Include the following meteorological measurements:

22 surface met stations6 surface energy budget stations2 CTI windtracer lidars2 radiosonde systems4 wind profiler/RASS systems1 FM-CW radar3 ceilometers9 sodars

+ Oklahoma mesonet+ NEXRAD radars of the US weather service

In collaboration with our CRTI partners (U. of Waterloo, Defence R&D Canada)

Meteorological Service of CanadaEnvironment Canada RPN

Other Cases and Collaborations

Assessment of role and impact of TEB in Canadian urban environments:

For example:

A) Cold weather cases with snow (e.g., Montreal in January)

B) Other cases: opportunity to use the Multi-city Urban Hydro-meteorological dataset (MUHB) with Prof. Tim Oke’s group at U. British-Colombia

C) Developping an operational system for Vancouver in view of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

GEM is an ideal tool for multi-scale atmospheric transport and dispersion problems, including urban scale

Urban atmospheric transport and dispersion tools

We have started a project based on GEM to develop and validate an integrated, state-of-the-art, high-fidelity multi-scale modeling system for the accurate and efficient prediction of urban flow and dispersion of CBRN materials.

Development of this proposed multi-scale modeling system will provide the real-time modeling and simulation tool to predict injuries, casualties, and contamination and to make relevant decisions to minimize the consequences based on a pre-determined decision making framework.

Conclusion

For 2004-2005 the R&D strategy in collaboration with CMC, regional weather services and Canadian Universities

Global NWP with a MESOGLOBAL GEM (35km) with a lid at the stratopause (.1mb) with the Regional GEM physics package

A 4D-Var data assimilation system with increasing new asynoptic and satellite data

An Ensemble Prediction System (EPS) will be delivered with a comprehensive physics and initial condition perturbations approach

- A comprehensive unified EPS R&D and operational Long Range Plan has bee initiated with the National Weather Service. Ribbon Tying Ceremony 16-18 November, 2004, NCEP, Camp Springs

Conclusion Improved our Regional (15km-10km) and

Local (3km-1km) NWP system with applications to urban area problems

Collaborating with CMC, REGIONS and Canadian Universities and other partners for Environmental Prediction (coupling GEM with chemistry, hydrology and ocean)