The Polar WRF

Register to download Polar WRF 3.3.1/3.4.1

Statistics on Registered PWRF 3.4.1 and 3.3.1 users as March 6, 2013

PWRF 3.3.1 sent to:

  • 22 countries including USA
  • 51 International users
  • 27 US users outside of OSU

    News: October 18, 2012

    WRF Model Version 3.4.1 was released by NCAR on August 16, 2012. The most recent polar modifications (primarily sea ice related) have been ported to WRF 3.4.1 and the resulting code run through a series of validation tests - this is Polar WRF 3.4.1 that is NOW available to the scientific community.

    Description:

    Based on extensive experience with mesoscale modeling in the polar regions by the Polar Meteorology Group of the Byrd Polar Research Center at The Ohio State University, the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) has been modified for use in the Polar Regions (referred to as the Polar WRF). A development approach is adopted similar to that used previously to implement the Polar version of the PSU/NCAR fifth generation mesoscale model (Polar MM5). The key modifications for Polar WRF are:

    • Optimal surface energy blance and heat transfer for the Noah LSM over sea ice and permanent ice surfaces
    • Implementation of a variable sea ice thickness and snow thickness over sea ice for the Noah LSM
    • Implementation of seasonally-varing sea ice albedo in the Noah LSM

    Testing of Polar WRF over Arctic and Antarctic surfaces provides guidance on best choice of physics options. See the publications for guidance.

    Model evaluations through Polar WRF simulations over Greenland and the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA site) have been performed, and the results are described in the articles provided below. Development studies have been performed for Arctic land (ARM sites in Alaska), and Antarctica.

    Polar WRF is used by forecasters as part of the National Science Foundation sponsored Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS; link provided below) to meet the operational and logistic needs of the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). Under a collaborative project with the Polar Meteorology Group, AMPS simulations are performed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research twice per day (00Z and 12Z initializations), and cover progressively finer domains ranging from 45-km (covering most of the Southern Hemisphere) to 1.7-km (covering the region immediately surrounding McMurdo Station, the base of USAP operations). A 45-km resolution version of the Polar WRF is run here at the Byrd Polar Research Center twice per day for 5 days.


    Status of Polar WRF:

    Disclaimer: Polar WRF code is released and supported solely by the PMG and is currently based on standard WRF Version 3.0.1.1 (released November 2008), WRF Version 3.1.1 (released July 2009), WRF Version 3.2.1 (released August 23, 2010), or WRF Version 3.3.1 (released September 2011); contact Dr. David Bromwich for details. The Polar WRF code cannot be guaranteed to work under all circumstances, so feedback will help iron out any remaining kinks. We will provide assistance with code use to the level consistent with our ongoing responsibilities.

    May, 2012:

    Extensive testing of Polar WRF including version 3.3.1 in Antarctica completed. See Bromwich et al. (2013) below.

    November 2, 2011:

    Polar WRF 3.3.1 is available. Tested for limited periods over Greenland, Arctic Ocean, and Alaska.

    April 25, 2011:

    WRF 3.3 was released to the community by NCAR on April 6, 2011. The Polar Meteorology Group will port all polar modifications to this release and provide a tar file of changes to interested users. Release date of Polar WRF 3.3 is yet to be decided. A suite of test simulations for Arctic sea ice (SHEBA case), the Greenland Ice Sheet, and Antarctic will be performed to verify the reliability of the modified codes.

    August 23, 2010 : Polar WRF 3.2.1 is available:

    WRF 3.2 was released to the community by NCAR on April 2, 2010. The Polar Meteorology Group has ported all polar modifications to this release and provides a tar file of changes to interested users as of August 2010. A suite of test simulations for Arctic sea ice (SHEBA case), the Greenland Ice Sheet, and Antarctic are performed to verify the reliability of the modified codes.

    The modifications to WRF code for polar applications are available upon request from the Polar Meteorology Group to interested researchers.

    October 5, 2009: Polar WRF 3.1.1 is available:

    WRF Version 3.1.1 was released by NCAR on July 31, 2009 with fractional sea ice now as a standard option in the downloadable code from NCAR. The Polar WRF modifications have now been updated for WRF 3.1.1 as of October 5, 2009. Important new features include the posibility of variable specified sea ice thickness and variable specified snow depth on sea ice. These features have been added in preparation for the Arctic System Reanalysis. Users should expect colder Arctic near-surface atmospheric temperatures and reduced ground heat flux. If you are still using WRF 3.0.1.1, with that previous upgrade in that standard release the Morrison mixed-phase microphysics (developed especially for Arctic stratus clouds and tested by Bromwich et al. [2009]) became a standard option. All other polar physics for WRF 2.2 was implemented into WRF 3.0.1.1, and the modified code was tested fairly extensively. The fractional sea ice description developed by the Polar Meteorology Group (PMG; Le-Sheng Bai and Keith Hines) has been ported to the surface driver included in WRF 3.0.1.1, as well as the modifications to the NOAH LSM required for ice sheets, as described by Hines and Bromwich (2008).

    April 9, 2009

    WRF 3.1 has been released to the community by NCAR. The fractional sea ice developed by the Polar Meteorology Group is now a standard option within WRF. To use fractional sea ice set the "fractional_seaice" option to 1 in the WRF runtime namelist. Also, set the WPS initialization to ensure that the correct fractional sea ice data values (variable name SEAICE, it's best to include it in the metgrid variable table) are input to your model run. This is a contribution to the International Polar Year (March 2007-March 2009).

    September 17, 2009

    The full polar physics used with WRF 3.0.1.1 is being ported into a publicly-available modifications tar file for use with the most recent version of WRF, version 3.1.1. This will include the modified surface energy balance over permanent ice sheets, and modified heat transfer within permanent ice. New additions to the Noah LSM will be variable thickness of sea ice and variable snow cover on sea ice. Expected availability of Polar WRF 3.1.1 tar file is late September/early October 2009.

    Future for Polar WRF: Polar WRF is a research modification of the standard WRF code and new capabilities will continue to be added. The polar capabilities in standard WRF will likely lag behind those available in the Polar WRF code from the Polar Meteorology Group (not necessarily supported by NCAR). The goals for the next phase of Polar WRF development target more detailed specified sea-ice description within the NOAH LSM, including variable ice thickness and surface albedo, along with a representation of Arctic melt ponds.


    Testing of Polar WRF:

    by the Polar Meteorology Group for representative polar environments

    • Greenland ice sheet: evaluation completed and described in Hines and Bromwich (2008).
    • SHEBA (Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean) site in the Beaufort Sea in 1997-1998: evaluation has been completed and described in Bromwich et. al (2009).
    • Arctic land areas (Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Monitoring (ARM) sites at Barrow and Atqasuk, Alaska): work completed and described in Hines et al. (2011).
    • Evaluated for the greater Arctic by Wilson et al. (2011,2012).
    • Antarctica: work completed by Francis Otieno, Elad Shilo and David Bromwich. In addition, work on this topic has been ongoing at NCAR (primarily) as part of the Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS) by Kevin Manning and Jordan Powers. See Bromwich et al. (2013).

    April 25, 2011:

    Based upon request, Polar WRF has been sent to the following 68 individuals:

  • Manda Adams, University of North Carolina Charlotte
  • K. D. Ahn, National Institute of Meteorological Research, South Korea
  • Mike Barlage, NCAR
  • Neal Barton, University of Delaware
  • Bart Brashers, ENVIRON International Corporation
  • John Cassano, University of Colorado
  • Steven Cavallo, NCAR
  • Peter Childs, AirDat, Morrisville, NC
  • Denis Demchev, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Russia
  • Marikate Ellis, Atmospheric and Environmental Research
  • Jerome Fast, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
  • Roman Finkelnburg, Technische Universitaet Berlin, Germany
  • Brandon Fisel, Iowa State University
  • Henry Fuelberg, Florida State University
  • Steve George, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
  • Ben Gready, University of Alberta
  • Daniel Grosvenor, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
  • Robert Grumbine, National Centers for Environmental Prediction
  • Suraj Harshan, Texas Tech University
  • Matthew Higgins, University of Colorado
  • Oivind Hodnebrog, University of Oslo, Norway
  • Sarah Kapnick, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Chris Karmosky, Penn State University
  • Tiina Kilpelainen, The University Centre in Svalbard, Norway
  • Dave Kindig, National Snow and Ice Data Center
  • Jason Knievel, National Center for Atmospheric Research
  • Erik Kolstad, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Norway
  • Vladimir Krupchatnikoff, Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics, Russia
  • Anupam Kumar, Indian Meteorological Department
  • Q. Liao, LACS, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, China
  • Varavut Limpasuvan, Coastal Carolina University
  • Ron Lindsay, Polar Science Center, University of Washington
  • Mira Losic, Rutgers University
  • Po-Lun Ma, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
  • Yongfeng Ma, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China
  • Kevin Manning, National Center for Atmospheric Research
  • Jonathan Meyer, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
  • Stephanie Mayer, University of Bergen, Norway
  • Andrew Molthan, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
  • Hugh Morrison, National Center for Atmospheric Research
  • Andrew Orr, British Antarctic Survey, United Kingdom
  • Sandip R. Oza, Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, India
  • Thomas Parish, University of Wyoming
  • David Porter, University of Colorado
  • Jordan Powers, National Center for Atmospheric Research
  • Jean-Christophe Raut, Université Paris, Paris, France
  • Diandong Ren, University of Texas
  • David Reusch, Penn State University
  • Alan Robock, Rutgers University
  • Maria Joao Rocha, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
  • Bernard Sacré, University of Liege, Belgium
  • Mark Seefeldt, Providence College
  • Walter Sessions, Florida State University
  • Sheeba, N.C., University of Malaya, Malaysia
  • Yongjia Song, Georgia Tech
  • Bruce Stevens, Environmental Sciences Research Center, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, CA
  • Kumarenthiran Subramaniam, Malaysian Meteorological Department
  • CJ Sui, National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center, Beijing, China
  • Qian Tan, Goddard Earth Sciences & Technology Center, University of Maryland Baltimore County
  • Esa-Matti Tastula, University of Helsinki, Finland
  • Teresa Valkonen, University of Helsinki, Finland
  • Timo Vihma, Finnish Meteorological Institute
  • Johannes Wagner, University of Innsbruck, Austria
  • Tae-Kwon Wee, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
  • Yz Xian, National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center, Beijing, China
  • Peyman Zawar-Reza, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
  • Jing Zhang, University of Alaska Fairbanks
  • Ming Zhao, University of Wyoming

    If you would like to use Polar WRF, please fill out our registration form to obtain the source code.


    Final thoughts:

    Watch this location for further updates that will be issued when needed. We appreciate your interest and trust you will acknowledge our efforts on behalf of the scientific community in presentations and publications. Please keep us informed as to manuscripts on Polar WRF so that we can maintain an online archive of relevant publications. Research supported by US federal funding, primarily from the National Science Foundation.


    Last updated: March 6, 2013


    Publications:

  • Bromwich, D. H., F. O. Otieno, K. M. Hines, K. W. Manning, and E. Shilo, 2013: Comprehensive evaluation of polar weather research and ofrecasting performance in the Antarctic. J. Geophys. Res., 118, 274-292, doi: 10.1029/2012JD018139. Full Text (PDF)

  • Kumar, A., S. K. R. Bhowmik, and A. K. Das, 2012: Implementation of Polar WRF for short range prediction of weather over Maitri region in Antarctica. J. Earth Sys. Sci., 121, 1125-1143. Full Text (PDF)

  • Wilson, A. B., D. H. Bromwich, K. M. Hines, 2012: Evaluation of Polar WRF forecasts on the Arctic System Reanalysis domain. 2. Atmospheric hydrologic cycle. J. Geophys. Res., 17, D04107, doi: 10.1029/2011JD016765. Full Text (PDF)

  • Hines, K. M., D. H. Bromwich, L.-S. Bai, M. Barlage, and A. G. Slater, 2011: Development and testing of Polar WRF. Part III. Arctic land. J. Climate, 24, 26-48, doi: 10.1175/2010JCLI3460.1. Full Text (PDF)

  • Wilson, A. B., D. H. Bromwich, K. M. Hines, 2011: Evaluation of Polar WRF forecasts on the Arctic System Reanalysis domain: Surface and upper air analysis. J. Geophys. Res., 116, D11112, doi: 10.1029/2010JD015013. Full Text (PDF)

  • Bromwich, D. H., K. M. Hines, and L.-S. Bai, 2009: Development and Testing of Polar Weather Research and Forecasting Model: 2. Arctic Ocean. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D08122, doi:10.1029/2008JD010300. Full Text (PDF)

  • Hines, K.M., D.H. Bromwich, M. Barlage, and A.G. Slater, 2009: Arctic land simulations with Polar WRF. Preprints, 10th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography, American Meteorological Society, 18-21 May 2009, Madison, WI. (PDF)

  • Wilson, A.B., D.H. Bromwich, K.M. Hines, and C.E. Landis, 2009: Enhancement of Polar WRF Arctic atmospheric and surface processes. Preprints, 10th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography, American Meteorological Society, 18-21 May 2009, Madison, WI. (PDF)

  • Hines, K. M., and D. H. Bromwich, 2008: Development and testing of Polar WRF. Part I. Greenland ice sheet meteorology. Mon. Wea. Rev., 136, 1971-1989. Full Text (PDF)

    Polar WRF Links:

  • Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS) - WRF
  • BPRC Arctic Numerical Weather Prediction - PWRF
  • BPRC Antarctic Numerical Weather Prediction - PWRF