A ground-up approach to improving the modeling and forecasting of sea breezes in regions with complex geography: a study of the Delmarva sea breeze
Date
2021
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Sea breezes are important mesoscale atmospheric phenomena because they impact local weather patterns and climate. However, accurately forecasting these events remains a challenge. Hughes and Veron (2015) found that regional atmospheric models tend to favor synoptic scale forcing, which causes sea breezes to develop later and dissipate earlier than observed. These same models also tend to overestimate coastal wind speeds. Hughes (2016) also noted that the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model appeared unable to accurately simulate precipitation from the sea breeze circulation. Limitations to accurate sea breeze simulations may be due in part to the complex ocean-atmosphere, land-sea, and land-air interactions not being fully resolved in numerical weather models. On a synoptic scale, sea breeze modification of local climate might not be that important, but this impact becomes important at local and regional scales because of the influence on water resources, wind and solar energy production, disaster preparedness, public safety, air pollution, and tourism. Sea breezes are the largest source of summertime wind variability in Delaware (Hughes and Veron 2015). When considering these local-to-regional circulations, the inability to accurately forecast sea breezes can have important implications for the economy, energy, agriculture, tourism, public health, and the environment. ☐ The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate a novel approach to improving numerical weather prediction in complex coastal regions during warm season sea breeze events. This “ground-up” approach aimed to improve the physical representation of the coastlines, sea surface temperatures, and surface conditions in the model to yield a more accurate simulation. However, the results from this research show that improving the prediction of sea breezes is not as straightforward as improving the degree of realism in the model setup. This thesis will set up future research to better understand, simulate, and predict the occurrence of sea breeze circulations.
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Keywords
Complex coastal geography, Mesoscale meteorology, Numerical weather prediction, Sea breeze, Weather Research and Forecasting, Wind forecasting