Publications

Hassanli, H; Rahimzadegan, M (2019). Investigating extracted total precipitable water vapor from Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and MODIS measurements. JOURNAL OF ATMOSPHERIC AND SOLAR-TERRESTRIAL PHYSICS, 193, 105060.

Abstract
Total Precipitable Water (TPW) vapor value in the earth's atmosphere and its variations are of great importance in atmospheric and climatic studies. Among the most important methods introduced for estimation of TPW are satellite products such as Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and numerical methods such as Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF). The performance of TPW estimation methods are different in various locations and require evaluations. Then, the goal of this study is investigating the performance of estimated TPW from MODIS product (MOD05) and WRF model. In this regard, two infrared (IR) and near infrared (NIR) algorithms of MOD05 were evaluated. Moreover, three nested resolutions of 27, 9, and 3 km of the WRF in 0000 and 1200 UTC were investigated. Mehrabad radiosonde station in the south of Tehran, Iran was considered as the study area. Evaluation of the two selected models was performed using radiosonde measurements of 240 days in 2013 and 2014. Among the nested domains for WRF model, the 3 km model at 0000 UTC provided the best results with determination coefficient (R-2) of 0.81 and Root Mean Square Difference (RMSD) of 2.98 mm. Among the MODIS products, MODIS IR showed a better performance with R-2 of 0.72 and RMSD of 3.46 mm. In general, the estimated TPW from MODIS-IR and WRF3 showed that WRF has a better performance. Then, the results proved that WRF model can be used in various meteorological conditions for estimation TPW with an acceptable accuracy.

DOI:
10.1016/j.jastp.2019.105060

ISSN:
1364-6826