Course Content (Syllabus)
Introduction: general characteristics of atmospheric numerical models, historical aspects, applications.
Equations: The primitive equations, prognostic and diagnostic equations.
Numerical Methods: Round off and truncation errors, finite difference schemes, linear advection equation, diffusion equation, non-linear advection equation, stability, aliasing and non-linear instability, spectral methods, time differencing.
Grids: Horizontal grids, horizontal differencing, staggered grids of Arakawa, Gaussian grids, boundary conditions, choice of a grid, nesting (oneway, 2-way), vertical coordinates (sigma, Eta, isentropic), boundary conditions over land/sea surface (land/sea mask, topography, vegetation, land use).
Physical parameterizations: Surface energy balance, soil schemes, moisture and heat fluxes in the soil, microphysical schemes, convection schemes, treatment of snow, air/sea interaction, viscous sublayer.
Ensemble Weather Prediction: Analyses, operational numerical weather prediction, data assimilation, forecast errors, ensemble foreacasting methods (poor man’s ensemble, LAF, Ensemble Prediction System), singular vectors, available forecast parameters.