Simulating smoke dispersion and fire weather using NOAA’s next-generation numerical weather prediction model

Abstract

<p>NOAA has been transitioning its numerical weather predictions (NWP) models to the new models, which are based on Unified Forecasting System [https://ufscommunity.org/]. NOAA Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) in collaboration with other teams has been developing a new storm-scale NWP model – Rapid Refresh Forecasting System (RRFS) based on UFS. Currently the RRFS model is running in real time to provide experimental weather forecasting products [https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/RRFS/]. In the future the RRFS model will replace NOAA’s current operational High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) NWP system.</p><p>Following on the successful HRRR-Smoke implementation in 2020, we started transitioning the smoke emission, plume rise, dry and wet removal simulation capabilities into the RRFS based using the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP) framework. The CCPP framework also ensures consistency between the physics and smoke/aerosol parameterizations. There are a number of new capabilities implemented in RRFS-Smoke. The high spatial resolution VIIRS I-band and high-frequency GOES-16/17 fire radiative power (FRP) data are ingested into the model to estimate both biomass burning (BB) emissions and fire heat fluxes every hour. Inline turbulent mixing of smoke within the boundary layer scheme, hourly wildfire potential to predict the evolution of the BB emissions, smoke interactions with the double-moment microphysics scheme and other new capabilities are implemented into the new RRFS-Smoke model.</p><p>The RRFS-Smoke model is simulated for August 2019 over the US by focusing on the FIREX-AQ field campaign [https://csl.noaa.gov/projects/firex-aq/]. The wide range of in-situ and remote sensing observations obtained onboard the DC-8 aircraft during FIREX-AQ provide valuable datasets to evaluate and improve the capabilities of the RRFS-Smoke model to accurately simulate BB emissions, smoke transport and mixing, and fire plume rise. Here, we present the simulations and evaluations of the RRFS-Smoke model for fire weather and smoke for some of the FIREX-AQ cases.</p>