Regional climate modeling of floods and drought

We have successfully applied the Purdue Regional Model, which has been developed by Dr. Sun and his students, to simulate the 1993 flood in the US (Bosilovich and Sun 1999a, b), the 1998 flood in China and Korea (Sun 2002, Sun et al. 2004), the 1988 drought in the US (Sun 2002, Sun et al. 2004), and several other weather events. Furthermore, the sensitivity tests reveal that the 1988 drought was not initiated by a hot dry soil in the US alone. Numerical results also show that the 1998 flood in East Asia was caused by a combination of a westward extension of the subtropical high toward the north China coast, a strong baroclinic zone along 40N, an anomaly of low pressure in Korea and northern China, and a wet land surface in China, which enhanced evaporation.

I. 1993 flood in Mississippi River Valley. Observed (left) and simulated (right) monthly precipitation over the flooding area. (Bosilovich and Sun 1999)

Daily Midwest Precipitation

II. Atmospheric circulation simulated by Purdue Regional Model (PRM) during July 1993. Blue: Upper Level Jet (18 m s-1. Yellow: Vertical Motion (1 cm s-1 - Upward. Gold: Lower Level Moisture Transport (0.01 [kg kg-1][m s-1]). (Bosilovich and Sun 1999, J. Climate)

simulated atmospheric circulation

III. 850mb geopotential at 00Z April 24, 1998 from ECMWF/TOGA analysis (left); PRM simulated geopotential (right) integrated from 00Z April 08, 2004. (Yang 2004)

geopotential analysis and simulation

IV. The ECMWF-analysis (left panels) and PRM simulations (right panels) of monthly mean. Temperature, geopotential, moisture, and wind at 500 mb in June 1988. (Sun 2002, Sun et al. 2004)

geopotential analysis and simulation

V. 850-hPa vorticity fluctuations in the South China Sea (15–20; 110–120E). (Hsu et al. 2004)

vorticity in the South China Sea, 1991 vorticity in the South China Sea, 1992 vorticity in the South China Sea, 1993 vorticity in the South China Sea, 1994 vorticity in the South China Sea, 1995 vorticity in the South China Sea, 1996 vorticity in the South China Sea, 1997 vorticity in the South China Sea, 1998 vorticity in the South China Sea, 1999 vorticity in the South China Sea, 2000

Publications

Hsu, H.-H., Y.-C. Yu, W.-S. Kau, W.-R. Hsu, and W. Y. Sun, 2004: Simulation of the 1998 East Asian summer monsoon using Purdue regional model. (will appear in JJMS)

Sun, W. Y., J. D. Chern, and M. Bosilovich, 2004: Numerical Study of the 1988 Drought in the United States. (will appear in JJMS)

Yu, Y. C., H. H. Hsu, W. S. Kau, T. H. Tsou, W. R. Hsu, and W. Y. Sun, 2004: Assessment of PRM on short term regional climate simulation in Eastern Asia. (submitted for possible publication)

Yu, Y. C., H.-H. Hsu, W.-S. Kau, C.-H. Tsou, W.-R. Hsu, W.-Y. Sun, W.-N Yu, 2004: An Evaluation of the East Asian Summer Monsoon Simulation using the Purdue Regional Model. Third Workshop on Regional Climate Modeling for Monsoon System; February 17, 2004; University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Sun, W. Y. and J.D. Chern, 2004: One dimensional snow-land surface model applied to Sleepers experiment. (submitted for possible publication)

Min, K.-H. and W. Y. Sun, M. Bosilovich, and J. Chern, 2002: Initialization of the Purdue Mesoscale Model with land data assimilation system. Preprint, Korean Meteorological Soc. Spring Meeting. Daegu, Korea. 516–519.

Hsu, H. H, W. Y. Sun, W. R. Hsu, W. S. Kuo, Y. C. Yu, and C. F. Su, 2002: Numerical Simulation of Southeastern Asia Monsoon during May and June of 1998. The 5th Regional Climate Simulation Workshop; June 6, 2002; National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan.

Sun, W. Y. and J. D. Chern, 2000: Regional climate simulation of 1998 summer flood in East Asia. Keynote at Proceedings; Second International Ocean and Atmosphere Conference COAA 2000; July 10–12; Central Weather Bureau, Taipei, Taiwan. 40–45.

Sun, W. Y. and J. D. Chern, 1999: Numerical simulation of Southeast Asia weather in May–June of 1998. Preprint Workshop on Regional Climate. The Center of Ocean Research; March 11, 1999; National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. 12.

Bosilovich, M. G. and W.-Y. Sun, 1999a: Numerical simulation of the 1993 Midwestern Flood: Local and remote sources of water. J. Geophys. Res. 104, D16, 19,415–19,423.

Bosilovich, M. G. and W.-Y. Sun, 1999b: Numerical simulation of the 1993 Midwestern flood: Land-Atmosphere Interactions. J. Climate 12, 1490–1505.

Bosilovich, M. B. and W. Y. Sun, 1998: Monthly simulation of surface layer fluxes and soil properties during FIFE. J. Atmos. Sci. 55, 1170–1183.

Sun, W. Y., M. G. Bosilovich, and J. D. Chern, 1997: CCM1 regional response to anomalous surface properties. Terrestrial, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences 8, 271–288.

Sun, W. Y., J. D. Chern, and M. G. Bosilovich, 1995: Numerical study of regional climate. Proceeding of High Performance Computing—ASIA' 95; September 18–22, 1995; Taipei, Taiwan.

Oglesby, R. J., D. I. Leap, W. Y. Sun, and E. M. Agee, 1994: Modeling the effects of climatic changes on availability and quality of water. Computational mechanics V2, 9–17.