An improved numerical scheme to treat the open lateral boundary of a regional model

A numerical scheme proposed by Kurihara and Bender is modified so as to improve the behavior of open lateral boundaries of a regional model. In the new scheme, both the local values and the gradients of fields from a larger model are used to define the time-dependent reference values toward which the boundary gridpoint values of the regional model prediction are relaxed at each step of the model integration. Use of the gradients in the boundary forcing imposes constraints on the vorticity, divergence and baroclinicity fields for the regional model. The relaxation time of forcing is set to be short for the normal component of wind. For other variables, the relaxation time at a given boundary gridpoint depends on the wind direction at that gridpoint, with a minimum at a point of normal inflow and a maximum at a point of normal outflow. The forcing strength is reduced in the planetary boundary layer so that the boundary layer structure is determined mainly by the surface condition of the regional model. Also, a simple method to control the total mass in the regional model is described. Numerical results from 96-hour integrations with the improved scheme are compared with those from the previous scheme for the cases of the propagations of a wave and a vortex. The behavior of the model at the lateral boundary was noticeably improved with the use of the new scheme, while the solution in the interior domain was little affected by the scheme modification.