An intercomparison study between optimization algorithms for parameter estimation of microphysics in Unified model : Micro-genetic algorithm and Harmony search algorithm

Abstract

The microphysical processes of the numerical weather prediction (NWP) model cover the following : fall speed, accretion, autoconversion, droplet size distribution, etc. However, the microphysical processes and parameters have a significant degree of uncertainty. Parameter estimation was generally used to reduce errors in NWP models associated with uncertainty. In this study, the micro-genetic algorithm and harmony search algorithm were used as an optimization algorithm for estimating parameters. And we estimate parameters of microphysics for the Unified model in the case of precipitation in Korea. The differences which occurred during the optimization process were due to different characteristics of the two algorithms. The micro-genetic algorithm converged to about 1.033 after 440 times. The harmony search algorithm converged to about 1.031 after 60 times. It shows that the harmony search algorithm estimated optimal parameters more quickly than the micro-genetic algorithm. Therefore, if you need to search for the optimal parameter within a faster time in the NWP model optimization problem with large calculation cost, the harmony search algorithm is more suitable.