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A Simulation of an Extreme Katabatic Wind Event
Laboratorie d'etude des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement
Grenoble, France
and
Gerd Wendler
Geophysical Institute
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Alaska, USA
Abstract
The polar limited area model MAR is used to assess the ability of a mesoscale model to simulate extreme katabatic wind events, in order to forecast them over the Antarctic ice sheet. MAR simulates the event of 23 February 2001 at Cape Denison, even when using a coarse horizontal resolution of 55 km. Nevertheless the maximum wind speed is underestimated. Sensitivity experiments to the representation of turbulence above the SL confirm the relatively good performances of the E-e scheme proposed by Duynkerke (1998). It is confirmed that the blowing snow process is responsible for an increase of the wind speed. An increase of the horizontal resolution slightly improves the simulation.
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