The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model at the convection-permitting grid scale accurately simulates the surface meteorological variables over the Himalaya and demonstrates considerable promise in forcing glacial and hydrological models. However, achieving an accurate simulation of glacier mass balance and the hydrology of the Himalaya demands a coupled atmospheric and glacial-hydrological model. The hydrological extension of the WRF model (WRF-Hydro) provides a framework for simulating surface hydrological processes while maintaining consistent physics and dynamics simulated with the WRF atmospheric module. To improve the reliability of glacier hydrology and its energy and mass balance simulation, an advanced Glacier model has been developed in the literature. However, it has not been coupled with WRF/WRF-Hydro to simulate a comprehensive spectrum of the atmospheric-hydrologic processes in the Himalaya. We coupled this advanced glacier model with our WRF-Hydro model, called WRF-Hydro-Glacier, to simulate the glacier mass balance and runoff over the glaciated Langtang catchment in the central Himalaya. Notably, this study is the first of its kind in the Himalaya to utilize WRF output for forcing the WRF-Hydro-Glacier model and evaluate its performance, comparing it with models based on other widely used reanalysis datasets. The results of our study show that the glacier energy balance and runoff produced by the WRF-Hydro-Glacier, forced with the WRF output, demonstrates better agreement with observations compared to simulations forced by the reanalysis dataset alone. Hence, we conclude that the coupled WRF and WRF-Hydro-Glacier modeling system is a reliable tool for studying the atmosphere-glacier-hydrological dynamics in the Himalaya.
1125 Colonel By Dr
Ottawa ON K1S 5B6
Canada