The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) has begun operations on its new upgraded numerical weather prediction (NWP) system.
The implementation of the system, called GRAPES_GFS V3.1, will not only improve calculation accuracy and forecast skill but it will also help to better support operations at CMA.
The major physical upgrades to the system include an improved methane oxidation scheme, land surface model and moist physical processes.
According to a release by the World Meteorological Centre Beijing, a new scheme has been introduced to “parameterized methane oxidation process which was absent in GRAPES_GFS V3.0. This scheme improved the values of water vapour in the upper stratosphere and helped to reduce the temperature and height bias above the stratosphere.”
For the land surface model the modifications include optimized calculation of roughness length over the ocean and land; consideration of the impact of salinity over the ocean related to the latent heat flux; optimized calculation of soil evaporation by adding a soil resistance term; and introduced the supercooled soil water in consideration of the co-exist condition of liquid and ice water in the soil.
To read more about the upgrades to the CMA’s NWP system, click here.