Evaluation of the Plant–Craig stochastic convection scheme (v2.0) in the ensemble forecasting system MOGREPS-R (24 km) based on the Unified Model (v7.3)

Keane, Richard J.; Plant, Robert S.; Tennant, Warren J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1921-2016

Articles | Volume 9, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1921-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1921-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 5

Development and technical paper

|

25 May 2016

Development and technical paper |

| 25 May 2016

Evaluation of the Plant–Craig stochastic convection scheme (v2.0) in the ensemble forecasting system MOGREPS-R (24 km) based on the Unified Model (v7.3)

Richard J. Keane, Robert S. Plant, and Warren J. Tennant

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Final revised paper (published on 25 May 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 01 Dec 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

SC C3157: 'Executive Editor Comment on "Evaluation of the Plant-Craig stochastic convection scheme in an ensemble forecasting system"', Astrid Kerkweg, 03 Dec 2015
- AC C3176: 'Model version numbers in title', Richard Keane, 03 Dec 2015
- RC C3451: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #2, 22 Dec 2015
RC C3354: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 16 Dec 2015
- AC C3674: 'Reply to Reviewer #1', Richard Keane, 12 Jan 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Richard Keane on behalf of the Authors (23 Mar 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (04 Apr 2016) by Holger Tost

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (15 Apr 2016)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (18 Apr 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review of "Evaluation of the Plant-Craig stochastic convection scheme (v2.0) in the ensemble forecasting system MOGREPS-R (24km) based on the Unified Model (v7.3)"

The authors have done a very nice job with revising the text. However, I find the text modifications to my previous major concern 1. insufficient. Furthermore, I don't think the discussion about the experimentation is fair without addressing this issue more thoroughly in the text. Although the text changes associated with this point are (likely) minor in nature, I am suggesting another “major revision” to emphasize the importance of this point.

Major concerns

1. My previous Major concern 1. was that the good skill of the PC scheme might be related to suppressed convection in the model. In the authors' response they say that “... it is the total (large-scale plus convective) rainfall that is very similar”. They continue, that because the PC scheme produces less convection, the grid scale dynamics acts to compensate this by producing more rainfall. This (in my mind) clearly points out that the improved skill is (likely) partly thanks to the model dynamics compensating for the lack of convective activity. The discussion about this in Section 3.4 is avoiding to confront the issue.

I would like the authors to discuss the issue in the text, at least in Section 3.4, stating that part of the improved skill might be due to the model dynamics being more active (due to this being an initial, little tuned implementation of the PC scheme in MOGREPS-R).

Minor concerns

1. I still see a problem in Figures 13-14 with the lowest threshold values missing for GR in Fig 13 and for PC in Fig 14. Based on the authors' response earlier, did you forget to update the figures into the text?

Referee Report: PDF

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (25 Apr 2016) by Holger Tost

AR by Richard Keane on behalf of the Authors (04 May 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 May 2016) by Holger Tost

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (11 May 2016)

ED: Publish as is (11 May 2016) by Holger Tost

Short summary

A widely studied stochastic deep convection scheme is evaluated over an extended forecasting period for the first time. It is found to significantly improve the probabilistic forecast for weakly forced cases – which tend to be less predictable – and to be comparable to a well-tuned reference scheme for strongly forced cases. A newly developed verification metric is applied to provide evidence that the improved probabilistic forecast is in large part due to the stochasticity of the scheme.

Evaluation of the Plant–Craig stochastic convection scheme (v2.0) in the ensemble forecasting system MOGREPS-R (24 km) based on the Unified Model (v7.3)

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Interactive discussion

Peer-review completion

Evaluation of the Plant–Craig stochastic convection scheme (v2.0) in the ensemble forecasting system MOGREPS-R (24 km) based on the Unified Model (v7.3)