Beardsley, R. C.1 and C. Chen2
1Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543. E-mail: rbeardsley@whoi.edu
2School for Marine Science and Technology, University of
Massachusetts-Dartmouth, 706 South Rodney French Blvd, New Bedford,
MA 02744. E-mail: c1chen@umassd.edu
The fifth-generation NCAR/Penn State mesoscale meteorological model
(called MM5) is applied to the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank (GOM/GB)
region. This model is configured with two numerical domains with
horizontal resolutions of 30 and 10 km, respectively, and driven by
the NCAR-ETA weather model through a two-way nested numerical
approach. Comparison of model-computed winds, wind stress and heat
flux with in-situ data collected on moored meteorological buoys in
the western GOM and over Georges Bank in 1995 shows that during
atmospheric frontal passages, MM5 provides a reasonable prediction
of wind speed but not wind direction, and relatively accurate
estimation of long-wave radiation but overestimates sensible and
latent fluxes. Assimilation of in-situ wind data significantly
improves the accuracy of the predicted wind speed and direction.
Incorporation of the Fairall et al [1996] bulk air-sea flux
algorithms with inclusion of AVHRR-derived SST data improves the
accuracy of the predicted latent and sensible h eat fluxes in the
GOM/GB region for both stable and unstable weather conditions.
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