Difference between SST and Skin Temperature over the ocean in WRF

[tienyiao]

Hi WRF-forum,

I am trying to understand how WRF treats its boundary condition over the ocean. I have a couple of questions listed below.

1. Which variable does WRF use to compute heat fluxes in planetary boundary layer schemes, SST or skin temperature?
2. Does WRF have an internal algorithm to convert SST to skin temperature? If so, what paper or references are out there?

Thanks in advance for reading my questions patiently. Any discussion will be appreciated.

 

[Ming Chen]

Please see my answers below:

Hi WRF-forum,

I am trying to understand how WRF treats its boundary condition over the ocean. I have a couple of questions listed below.

1. Which variable does WRF use to compute heat fluxes in planetary boundary layer schemes, SST or skin temperature?

WRF uses TSK (skin temperature) to calculate fluxes over the ocean.

1. Does WRF have an internal algorithm to convert SST to skin temperature? If so, what paper or references are out there?

Please take a look at the code module_surface_driver.F, in which TSK over water points are basically set to SST

Thanks in advance for reading my questions patiently. Any discussion will be appreciated.

 

[tienyiao]

Thanks for the reply. This is very helpful.