Planning EURO4M WP2.4 (Evaluation): Overview of Datasets and Activities

Planning EURO4M WP2.4 (Evaluation): Overview of Datasets and Activities

This document describes activities within and datasets available for evaluation in WP2.4. It serves as a basis for coordination/timing of work plans and exchange of datasets. A detailed planning of activities and the organization of data transfers is subject to bilateral coordination between concerned partners. The rights for using the data are defined by the project’s (EURO4M) agreement. Partners are asked to update this document whenever the status of plans and datasets are changing. The master document is available from (*** URL to EURO4M internal website. ***)

Involved partners and contact:

(Currently, this table lists partners with commitments in WP2.4 according to the DoW. Others are welcome to join in.)

Intended Evaluation Activities

This section describes the partners’ plans of evaluation activities within WP2.4. It serves to coordinate/align work tasks between partners and to avoid duplication. The section briefly specifies, for each partner, the subject and key questions of the evaluation, the procedures to be used and the datasets of potential interest. An indication of the intended start of the activity helps to align timing.

• Representation of meso-scale Alpine precipitation climate and variations by different datasets, notably regional reanalyses and downscaling datasets.
• What is the consistency between datasets in the spatial pattern,the annual cycle and inter-annual variations of mean precipitation and the occurrence of heavy precipitation and dry periods?
• How do high-resolution regional reanalyses compare to a global reanalysis in a region of high-mountain terrain? Identification of benefits by comparison to high-resolution rain-gauge analyses.
• How different are results from different methods of statistical spatial rainfall analysis from rain gauges and how accurate are such methods in reproducing point precipitation at the daily time scale. (In collaboration with MF.)

• Quantitative comparison of daily precipitation and extremes indices
• Using suitable error/skill scores (e.g. Hanssen-Kuipers for events, SEEPS (Rodwell et al. 2010), details yet to be defined)
• comparisons for different space scales (upscaling to avoid discrepancies in spatial resolution)

• HIRLAM-based reanalysis (SMHI), if meaningful MESAN downscaling (SMHI)
• MO regional reanalysis (MO),
• ERA-interim,
• MF 2D-downscaling (MF), if possible and meaningful SAFRAN (MF)

• MO regional reanalysis (MO),
• MO regional climate run (MO)

• MO regional reanalysis (MO),

• Precipitation, snow depth and river flow in the Alpine region
• Do we add really fine scale information with a regional analysis? How to evaluate this potential improvement?
• Do we improve the snow caracteristic (cover, depth, albedo) using a surface scheme forced by the 2D analysis over the Alps ?

• Quantitative comparison of the new analysis system over the Alps
• Local evaluation of surface fluxes with in-situ measurement (cabauw ,Sodankyla and Lindenberg )
• Sensitivity to the observation network

• Alpine Precipitation Grid Dataset (MS)

• Evaluation ofreanalysis data concerning surfacesolar radiation, cloudproperties, top ofatmosphere albedoand water vapour by comparison with CM-SAF and EURO4M (WP1.2) satellite based data.
• Evaluation of auto-calibration and inter-calibration methods for specific satellite sensors and channels.

• EUOR4M (from WP2) and ECMWF reanalysis.

Datasets

This section describes the datasets contributed by the involved partners and available for evaluation studies in WP2.4, including a key technical detail, relevant for the planning of evaluation activities. When available give some references to literature describing methods of construction. (Please replicate table rows if more than one dataset.)

• Preliminary version of dataset (D1.1 Month 36) available here.

• Upper air wind components, potential temperature, pressure, specific humidity, cloud water and ice on 70 model levels (up to 80km).
• Upper air wind components, temperature, relative humidity, geopotential height on 20 pressure levels (up to 50hPa).
• 10 m winds, 2m temperature, specific and relative humidity, visibility, gust speeds
• Soil temperature, moisture, snow depth, sea-ice fraction, large scale and convective precipitation, low, medium and high cloud cover, long wave and short wave radiation at surface and top of atmosphere, latent and sensible heat flux.

• 0.11° resolution on rotated lat-long grid (NP at 40, 200). 70 levels.
• Analysis every 6 hours. Data hourly/3-hourly/6-hourly up to T+24.
• North Atlantic-Europe area.

• Upper air wind components, temperature, specific humidity, cloud water and ice and turbulent kinetic energy on 60 levels (up to 10 hPa).
• 10 m winds, 2m temperature, specific humidity (average grid area plus land only).
• Soil temperature, moisture, snow depth, large scale and convective precipitation (in forecasts), low, medium and high cloud cover, Net long wave and short wave radiation at surface, and global short wave downwelling radiation, latent and sensible heat flux plus several other surface parameters (please see the User-guide).

• 0.2° resolution on rotated lat-long grid (NP at -30, 180). 60 levels.
• Analysis every 6 hours. Forecast data every hour up to 36.
• North Atlantic-Europe area.

• 1989 – 1993 was archived autumn-winter 2012,
• 1994 – 1999 will be archived in winter/spring 2013
• 2000 – 2009 in summer 2013.
• 2008-2010 will be prioritized, ready archived spring 2013. (Due to interaction with MO)

• 0.05 by 0.05 ° on rotated lat-long grid. Analysis every 3 hours.

• 1989-1997, is available
• 2008, available by spring 2013
• 1998-2009, available by summer 2013

• The period Oct2009-Dec2010 will be available before the end of July 2013. (Data available: Daily precipitation and T2m, Hu2m, Wind , Downward Radiative Fluxes every 6h)
  Already available now (Apr. 2013): Dec 2009, Jan 2010 and July 2010.
• Full period 2007 –2010 available by the end of October 2013
• Year 2008 available by July 2013.

• Surface Radiation and Albedo Dataset: Parts of the time series are already generated, the complete time series are probably ready end of 2012.
• HOAPS / GPCC Precipitation Dataset: Parts of the time series are already generated, the complete time series are probably ready end of 2012.
• CM-SAF TOA Albedo: already available.

References:

Frei, C. and C. Schär, 1998: A precipitationclimatologyofthe Alps from high-resolution rain-gauge observations. Int. J. Climatol., 18, 873-900.

Frei, C., R. Schöll, S. Fukutome, J. Schmidli, and P. L. Vidale (2006), Future changeofprecipitation extremes in Europe: Intercomparisonofscenariosfrom regional climatemodels, J. Geophys. Res., 111, D06105, doi:10.1029/2005JD005965.

Rodwell, M. J., D. S., Richardson, T. D. Hewsonand T. Haiden, 2010: A newequitable score suitableforverifyingprecipitation in numericalweatherprediction, Q.J.R.Meteorol.Soc.136, 1344–1363

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