- Director's Message
- Table of Contents
- Strategic Goals: Science, Facilities & Technology
- 1. Exploring atmospheric, Earth system, and solar processes, variability, and change
- 2. Investigating the interaction of the atmosphere, the broader Earth system, and human society
- 3. Improving prediction of weather, climate, and other atmospheric phenomena
- 4. Developing community models
- 5. Enabling innovative field experiments and measurement campaigns
- 6. Developing new instrumentation
- Research Catalog
Fei Chen
General Information
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RAL - TIIMES
Scientist III
Water System & BEACHON
Contact Information:
PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000
Office: FL2-3036
Telephone: 303-497-8454
Email: feichen@ucar.edu
Vita
Research Focus FY08:
Figure 1: Hourly precipitation valid at 2100 UTC (left), 2200 UTC (middle), and 2300 UTC (right) on 10 August 2006. The Upper panel is WRF/UCM simulation and the lower panel is 4-km Stage-IV precipitation analysis.
High resolution figure
Land Atmospheric Interaction and Modeling Group (webpage)
To understand, through theoretical and observational studies, the complex interactions (biophysical, hydrological, and bio-geochemical) between the land-surface and the atmosphere at micro- and mesoscales. The ultimate goal is to integrate such knowledge into numerical mesoscale weather prediction and regional climate models to improve prediction of the impacts of land-surface processes on regional weather, climate, and hydrology.
Develop the community Noah land surface model
As a major collaborative effort among NCAR, NECP, NASA/GSFC, AFWA and several university groups, we supported the development of the Unified Noah land surface model (LSM) and its implementation in the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. The Unified Noah LSM V3.0 was released in April 2008. Future enhancements include: a groundwater module; multi-layer canopy vegetation; improved snow albedo treatment, multi-layer snowpack, and new frozen soil scheme; 1-km MODIS land-use and land-cover data; and a multi-layer urban module.
Colorado Headwater
The Noah LSM is enhanced for use in Colorado Headwater project and for long-term Arctic simulations to investigate cold-season land-atmospheric interactions and evolution of snow packs. These enhancements include more and deeper soil layers, zero-flux bottom boundary condition, new time-varying snow albedo parameterization, and multi-layer snow model.
MEGAN
A prototype is developed to couple the Noah LSM, a multi-layer canopy model, a biogenic emission model (MEGAN), and a photosynthesis-based canopy resistance model (GEM). This prototype was employed to conduct 10-year HRLDAS simulations to analyze the impact of precipitation and soil water storage on biogenic emission.
Land-atmospheric interactions
The coupled WRF/Noah modeling system was combined with the IHOP_02 field data to analyze surface energy budgets, effects of mesoscale land-surface heterogeneity on the evolution of water vapor in the summer convective boundary layer, and regional feedbacks between soil moisture and summer precipitation.
Urbanization
An integrated WRF/urban canopy model (UCM) was developed and used to investigate the urban heat island for major metropolitan regions and their effects of urbanization on summer convective rainfall. We focus on evaluating the ability of the WRF model to simulate these fine-scale convective processes and investigating the impact of urban area on the evolution and characteristics of such convective systems. As shown in Fig. 1, the WRF/UCM simulation reasonably captures the important characteristics of a heavy rainfall on 10 August 2006 over the Greater Houston region.
Publications FY08:
Alfieri, J., X. Xiao, D. Niyogi, R. A. Pielke, Sr., F. Chen, M. A. LeMone, 2008: Satellite-based modeling of transpiration and evaporation of grasslands and croplands in the Southern Great Plains, USA. Global Planetary Changes. (In Press)
Miao, S., F. Chen, M. A. LeMone, M. Tewari, Q. Li, Y. Wang, 2008: An observational and modeling study of characteristics of urban heat island and boundary layer structures in Beijing. J. Appl. Meteor. Climat.. (In Press)
Alfieri, J., D. Niyogi, P. Blanken, F. Chen, M. A. LeMone, K. Mitchell, M. Ek, A. Kumar, 2008: Estimation of the minimum canopy resistance for croplands and grasslands using data from the 2002 International H20 Project. Mon. Wea. Rev.. (In Press)
LeMone, M. A., M. Tewari, F. Chen, J. G. Alfieri, D. Niyogi, 2008: Evaluation of the Noah land-surface model using data from a fair-weather IHOP_2002 day with heterogeneous surface fluxes. Mon. Wea. Rev.. (In Press)
Wyszogrodzki, A., F. Chen, M. Shiguang, 2008: Coupling between meso-scale (WRF) and urban-scale (EULAG) models to enhance contaminant transport and dispersion modeling in urban areas. DTRA-SBIR/CFDRC Report.1
Trier, S. B., F. Chen, K. W. Manning, M. A. Lemone, C. A. Davis, 2008: Sensitivity of the PBL and precipitation in 12-day simulations of warm-season convection using different land surface models and soil wetness conditions. Mon. Wea. Rev., 136, 2321-2343, doi: 10.1175/2007MWR2289.1.
Lin, C.-Y., F. Chen, J. C. Huang, W.-C. Chen, Y.-A. Liou, W.-N. Chen, S.-C. Liu, 2008: Urban Heat Island effect and its impact on boundary layer development and land-sea circulation over northern Taiwan. Atmos. Environ., 42, 5635-5649, doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2008.03.015.
Liu, Y., T. T. Warner, J. F. Bowers, L. Carson, F. Chen, C. A. Clough, C. A. Davis, C. H. Egeland, C. Halvorson, T. W. Huck, L. Lachapelle, R. E. Malone, D. L. Rife, R.-S. Sheu, S. P. Swerdlin, D. S. Weingarten, 2008: The operational mesogamma-scale analysis and forecast system of the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command. Part 1: Overview of the modeling system, the forecast products. J. Appl. Meteor. Climat., 47, 1077-1093.
Miao, S., F. Chen, 2008: Formation of horizontal convective rolls in urban areas. Atmos. Res., 89, 298-304.
Niyogi, D., H. I. Chang, F. Chen, L. Gu, A. Kumar, S. Menon, R. A. Pielke, Sr., 2007: Potential impacts of aerosol-land-atmosphere interactions on the Indian monsoonal rainfall characteristics. Natural Hazards, 42, 345-359, doi: 10.1007/s11069-006-9085-y.
Chen, F., J. Ching, 2007: Effects of using high-resolution urban land-use and building morphological data sets on the WRF/urban coupled model simulations for the Houston-Galveston areas. CMAS Conf., Chapel Hill, NC, US, CMAS.
Jiang, X.Y., C. Wiedinmyer, F. Chen, Z.-L. Yang, and J. C. F. Lo, 2008: Predicted Impacts of Climate and Land-Use Change on Surface Ozone in the Houston, Texas, Area. J. Geophys. Res., 113, D20312, doi:10.1029/2008JD009820.
Gao, Y., F. Chen, M. Barlage, W. Liu, Y. Ran, H. Li, H. Peng, and M. Ma, 2008: Enhancement of Land Surface Information and its Impact on Atmospheric Modeling in the Heihe River Basin, Northwest China. J. Geophys. Res., 113, D20S90, doi:10.1029/2008JD010359.
Couvreux, F., F. Guichard, P. Austino, and F. Chen, 2008: Nature of the mesoscale boundary-layer height and water-vapor variability observed the 14 June 2002 during the IHOP 2002 campaign. Mon. Wea. Rev., in press.
Alapaty K., D. Niyogi, F. Chen, P. Pyle, A. Chandrasekar, N. Seaman, 2008: Development of the Flux-Adjusting Surface Data Assimilation System for Mesoscale Models, J. Appl. Meteorol. Clim., in press.
Zhang, C., F. Chen, S. Miao, Q. Li, and C. Xuan, 2007: Impacts of Urbanization and Future Green-Planting on Summer Precipitation in the Greater Beijing Metropolitan Area. J Geophys. Res., in press.
Bastin, S., F. Chen, P. Drobinski, C. Flamant, C. Kiemle, J. Pelon, 2007: Impact of land surface heterogeneities on the atmospheric water vapor distribution within the boundary layer during the IHOP_2002 29 may 2002 case. Mon. Wea. Rev., submitted.