Impact of PBL schemes on multiscale WRF modeling over complex terrain, Part I: Mesoscale simulations

This study investigates the performance of two commonly used planetary boundary layer (PBL) schemes, the local turbulence closure (Mellor-Yamada-Janjić: MYJ) and the nonlocal turbulence closure (Yonsei University: YSU), over the tropical coastal region of Shenzhen, China, using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The simulation results are evaluated by comparing them to various measurements. Additionally, we also investigate the performance of the PBL schemes over different land cover types and their ability to reproduce the physical relationships between several pairs of interrelated near-surface atmospheric parameters. The results show that both PBL schemes underestimate temperature and PBL height and overestimate wind speed and turbulent fluxes throughout the whole day, but this can be improved by increasing horizontal resolution. We find that the overestimation of wind speed and turbulent heat fluxes is mainly caused by the strong mechanical mixing in the model. Some improvements are required such as more accurate surface morphology parameters and momentum transport coefficients. Overall, the YSU scheme outperforms the MYJ scheme at all horizontal resolutions over complex terrain in terms of near-surface variables, PBL vertical structures, and the internal relations between turbulent heat fluxes and atmospheric instability. However, the difference between the two PBL schemes, varying over different land covers and with time periods and altitudes within the PBL, is generally greater over the land than over the sea for thermal-related variables (especially during daytime), while for variables associated with water vapor is the opposite. This highlights the importance of the underlying surface for the performance of PBL schemes and the need to select appropriate PBL schemes for simulating the evolution of PBL processes over different land covers.