Models
Dr. Yuqing Wang has developed a number of numerical atmospheric models with different levels of complexity. Before he joined the IPRC, Dr. Wang had worked mainly in the area of tropical cyclones for more than 10 years. He developed atmospheric models and conducted research toward understanding of tropical cyclone motion, structure and intensity changes. In particular, during 1996-1999, he developed a triply nested, movable mesh, high-resolution primitive equation model (TCM3) which was designed specifically for tropical cyclone research. He developed the explicit cloud microphysics package and implemented an E-, turbulence closure scheme with several improvements, such as an initialization scheme for turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) and its dissipation rate and inclusion of cloud buoyancy production. The model has now being used by several groups in supporting their tropical cyclone research. The explicit cloud microphysics package developed originally for TCM3 is modified for the operational numerical weather prediction model in the Bureau of Meteorology, Australia and also used by Prof. Lance Leslie’s group at the University of Oklahoma for study severe weather systems.
Dr. Wang has recently updated his TCM3 with a fully compressible, nonhydrostatic dynamical core. The new version now is named as the fourth generation tropical cyclone model---TCM4. TCM4 uses fully compressible, nonhydrostatic, primitive equations formulated in Cartesian coordinates in the horizontal and uses mass vertical coordinate as used in the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. TCM4 shares the state-of-the-art model physics, the two-way interactive nesting, and automatic mesh movement with TCM3. A major feature of TCM4 is its capability of simulating the inner core structure of tropical cyclones at very high resolutions compared to its hydrostatic counterpart TCM3. In particular, the two-way multiply nested mesh structure and the automatic mesh movement make the model ideal for studying the interaction of a tropical cyclone with the imposed environmental flow.
Dr. Wang has expanded his research scope greatly since he joined the IPRC as an associate researcher in early 2000, with special focus on regional climate model development and regional climate modeling studies. At the IPRC, he has developed a highly resolved regional climate model (IPRC_RegCM), which is an extension of TCM3 he developed previously. In addition to several improvements in cloud microphysics scheme, surface layer parameterization, and mass flux cumulus parameterization scheme, to facilitate climate research and to realistically simulate the regional climate, he implemented into the model a complicated and accurate radiation package originally developed by Edwards and Slingo (1996) and further improved latter by Sun and Rikus (1999) and coupled the Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS) developed by Dickinson et al. (1993) with the regional atmospheric model. He also developed a semi-implicit coupling scheme and an improved iteration scheme for solving the leaf energy conservation equation in BATS to improve the model performance and to avoid any non-convergent solutions of leaf temperature. The unique features, such as the explicit coupling between the cloud microphysics and radiation, explicit interaction between the subgrid scale and grid scale cloud processes, and the explicit coupling between the surface albedos and the different components of solar radiation, make the IPRC–RegCM highly resolvable and suitable for use at various resolutions.
A tropical belt (45oS to 45oN globally) model has also been developed (Regional Tropical climate Model--RegTCM) which can be a useful tool for the study of tropical climate processes. Recently he is also working to develop a new atmospheric general circulation model (ACGM) in collaboration with scientists in LASG at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has coupled the model physics package originally developed for the IPRC–RegCM with the dynamical core developed at LASG. This new model is based on a grid point framework and facilitates a two-way nested global/regional climate modeling once it is developed in about two years as planned.
Based on the IPRC regional climate model and the tropical cyclone model TCM3, three externally funded projects at IPRC have been established in the last two years (see Research Projects).