Comparison of the Forecast Performance of WRF Using Noah and Noah-MP Land Surface Schemes in Central Asia Arid Region

The land surface scheme (LSS) plays a very important role in the forecast of meteorological elements Central Asia arid region. Therefore, two LSSs viz. Noah and Noah-MP were evaluated over region January July 2017 using Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model at 3-km horizontal grid resolution. objective was to assess performance WRF by calculated mean error (ME) root squared (RMSE) simulated hourly elements, such as 2-m air temperature, 10-m wind speed, soil moisture 5 25 cm thickness, heat flux thickness. results showed that, compared Noah, modeled less sensible northern Xinjiang (15~20 W∙m−2) latent most areas (<10 January, mainly generated north mountainous regions southern (≤20 W·m−2) which on contrary, more parts July. Meanwhile, from closer observations Hongliuhe Kelameili stations ME increased 17.5% reduced 80.7%, respectively, RMSE decreased 44.4% 61.7%, Xiaotang station July, 19.1% 20.5%, respectively. Compared improved overall simulation temperature eastern (at 10 thickness), 85.0% 13.4% 78.6% 6.2% 67.2% 14.9% 33.3% 2.8% Noah-MP’s lowered for speed especially cold climate Xinjiang, significantly, 0.8% 4.9% 6.7% 1.0% This study demonstrated advantage coupled region, providing basis WRF/Noah-MP future operational applications