Short-term performance of MM5 with cloud-cover assimilation from satellite observations

This study investigates the extent to which assimilating high-resolution remotely sensed cloud cover into the fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University-National Center for Atmospheric Research (PSU-NCAR) Mesoscale Model (MM5) provides an improved regional diagnosis of downward shortwave surface radiation fluxes and precipitation and enhances the model's ability to make short-range prediction. The high-resolution (4 km x 4 km) clear- and cloudy-sky radiances derived using a cloud-screening algorithm from visible band Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) data were used in the University of Maryland Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment's Surface Radiation Budget (UMD GEWEX/SRB) model to infer the vertically integrated cloud mass via cloud optical thickness. Three-dimensional cloud fields were created that took their horizontal distribution from the satellite image but derived their vertical distribution, in part, from the fields simulated by MM5 during the time step immediately prior to assimilation and, in part, from the observed cloud-top height derived from the infrared band of GOES. Linear interpolation was used to derive 1-min cloud images between 15-min GOES samples, and the resulting images were ingested every minute. Comparisons were made between modeled and observed data taken from the Arizona Meteorological Network (AZMET) in southern Arizona for model runs with and without cloud ingestion. Cloud ingestion substantially improved the ability of the MM5 model to capture temporal and spatial variations in surface fields associated with cloud cover. Experiments in which the model was operated in forecast mode suggest that cloud ingestion gave some limited enhancement in MM5 short-term prediction ability for up to 3 h. However, an analysis suggests that, in order to get additional forecasting capability, it will be necessary to modify the atmospheric dynamics and thermodynamics in the model to be consistent with the ingested cloud fields