Simulation of FY-2D infrared brightness temperature and sensitivity analysis to the errors of WRF simulated cloud variables

This study simulated FY-2D satellite infrared brightness images based on the WRF and RTTOV models. The effects of prediction errors in WRF micro- and macroscale cloud variables on FY-2D infrared brightness temperature accuracy were analyzed. The principle findings were as follows. In the T +0–48 h simulation time, the root mean square errors of the simulated brightness temperatures were within the range 10–27 K, i.e., better than the range of 20–40 K achieved previously. In the T +0–24 h simulation time, the correlation coefficients between the simulated and measured brightness temperatures for all four channels were >0.5. The simulation performance of water channel IR3 was stable and the best. The four types of cloud microphysical scheme considered all showed that the simulated values of brightness temperature in clouds were too high and that the distributions of cloud systems were incomplete, especially in typhoon areas. The performance of the THOM scheme was considered best, followed in descending order by the WSM6, WDM6, and LIN schemes. Compared with observed values, the maximum deviation appeared in the range 253–273 K for all schemes. On the microscale, the snow water mixing ratio of the THOM scheme was much bigger than that of the other schemes. Improving the production efficiency or increasing the availability of solid water in the cloud microphysical scheme would provide slight benefit for brightness temperature simulations. On the macroscale, the cloud amount obtained by the scheme used in this study was small. Improving the diagnostic scheme for cloud amount, especially high-level cloud, could improve the accuracy of brightness temperature simulations. These results could provide an intuitive reference for forecasters and constitute technical support for the creation of simulated brightness temperature images for the FY-4 satellite.