Improvement and Evaluation of the Latest Version of WRF-Lake at a Deep Riverine Reservoir

• Published in: Advances in atmospheric sciences 2023-04, Vol.40 (4), p.682-696
• Main Authors: Guo, Shibo, Zhu, Dejun, Chen, Yongcan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atmosphere; Atmospheric Sciences; Diffusion coefficients; Diffusivity; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Energy transfer; Flow rates; Flow velocity; Fluctuations; Geophysics/Geodesy; Heat; Heat exchange; Heat flux; Heat transfer; Inflow; Lakes; Meteorology; Optimization; Original Paper; Outflow; Reservoirs; Surface temperature; Surface water; Temperature differences; Temperature gradients; Temperature variations; Thermal diffusivity; Water inflow; Water outflow; Water temperature; Weather forecasting
• ISSN: 0256-1530; 1861-9533
• DOI: 10.1007/s00376-022-2180-5

The WRF-lake vertically one-dimensional (1D) water temperature model, as a submodule of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) system, is being widely used to investigate water—atmosphere interactions. But previous applications revealed that it cannot accurately simulate the water temperature in a deep riverine reservoir during a large flow rate period, and whether it can produce sufficiently accurate heat flux through the water surface of deep riverine reservoirs remains uncertain. In this study, the WRF-lake model was improved for applications in large, deep riverine reservoirs by parametric scheme optimization, and the accuracy of heat flux calculation was evaluated compared with the results of a better physically based model, the Delft3D-Flow, which was previously applied to different kinds of reservoirs successfully. The results show: (1) The latest version of WRF-lake can describe the surface water temperature to some extent but performs poorly in the large flow period. We revised WRF-lake by modifying the vertical thermal diffusivity, and then, the water temperature simulation in the large flow period was improved significantly. (2) The latest version of WRF-lake overestimates the reservoir—atmosphere heat exchange throughout the year, mainly because of underestimating the downward energy transfer in the reservoir, resulting in more heat remaining at the surface and returning to the atmosphere. The modification of vertical thermal diffusivity can improve the surface heat flux calculation significantly. (3) The longitudinal temperature variation and the temperature difference between inflow and outflow, which cannot be considered in the 1D WRF-lake, can also affect the water surface heat flux.