Evaluation of Topographic Effect Parameterizations in Weather Research and Forecasting Model over Complex Mountainous Terrain in Wildfire-Prone Regions

Authors

Yonghan Jo, Chungnam National University
Seung Hee Kim, Chapman UniversityFollow
Yungon Lee, Chungnam National University
Changki Kim, Chungnam National University
Jinkyu Hong, Yonsei University
Junhong Lee, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
Keunchang Jang, National Institute of Forest Science, Korea

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-14-2025

Abstract

Recent trends of intense forest fires in the Korean Peninsula have increased concerns about more extreme burning in the future under a warming climate. Accurate and reliable fire weather information has become more critical to reduce the risk of forest-related disasters over complex terrain. In this study, two parameterizations reflecting complex topographic effects were implemented in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The model performance was evaluated over the mountainous region in Gangwon-do, South Korea’s most significant forest area. The simulation results of the wildfire case in 2019 show that subgrid-scale orographic parameterization considerably improves model performance regarding wind speed, with a lower root mean square error (RMSE) and bias by 53% and 57%, respectively. Another parameterization, reflecting slope and shading, effectively reflected sunrise and sunset effects. The second parametrization produced little effect on the daily averages of meteorological elements. However, thermodynamic components such as temperature and heat flux show more realistic values during sunset or sunrise when the solar altitude angle is low. The results imply that applying topographic parameterizations is required in numerical simulations, especially for hazardous weather conditions over complex terrain in mountainous regions.

Comments

This article was originally published in Fire, volume 8, issue 5, in 2025. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire8050196

Recommended Citation

Jo, Y.; Kim, S.; Lee, Y.; Kim, C.; Hong, J.; Lee, J.; Jang, K. Evaluation of Topographic Effect Parameterizations in Weather Research and Forecasting Model over Complex Mountainous Terrain in Wildfire-Prone Regions. Fire 2025, 8, 196. https://doi.org/10.3390/fire8050196

Copyright

The authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.