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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Geoscientific Model Development

Slope-Constrained Orography (SCO v1.0) for explicit discrete-slope control in terrain preprocessing: a case study with WRF-ARW (v4.6.1)

  • Yulong Ma
  • Xingwen Jiang1,2
  • Lin Mu3
  • Zhiwei Heng
  1. 1China Meteorological Administration (Beijing, China)
  2. 2Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (Beijing, China)
  3. 3Shenzhen University (Shenzhen, China)
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Abstract

Kilometre-scale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) simulations over terrain with steep slopes often require strong smoothing to prevent numerical instability, but conventional domain-wide filters alter terrain at every grid point, regardless of whether local slopes require reduction. Slope-Constrained Orography (SCO) is an offline terrain preprocessing method that prescribes a target slope angle θ and adjusts only those grid points whose eight-neighbour elevation differences exceed the implied bound, leaving the remaining terrain unchanged. By prescribing the slope constraint directly, SCO provides a geometrically interpretable primary user-facing parameter for terrain construction and stability testing. In a 1 km WRF case over the highly complex terrain of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, the least-modified stable SCO member among those tested modifies 14 % of points with a mean elevation change of 8.2 m, compared with 100 % modification and 108.1 m for the corresponding WRF Preprocessing System (WPS) member. The successful SCO configuration produces lower near-surface wind and temperature errors in this case.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{ma2026slopeconstrained,
  title = {{Slope-Constrained Orography (SCO v1.0) for explicit discrete-slope control in terrain preprocessing: a case study with WRF-ARW (v4.6.1)}},
  author = {Yulong Ma and Xingwen Jiang and Lin Mu and Zhiwei Heng},
  journal = {Geoscientific Model Development},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  doi = {10.5194/gmd-19-10433-2026},
  url = {https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/19/10433/2026/},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Slope-Constrained Orography (SCO v1.0) for explicit discrete-slope control in terrain preprocessing: a case study with WRF-ARW (v4.6.1)
AU  - Yulong Ma
AU  - Xingwen Jiang
AU  - Lin Mu
AU  - Zhiwei Heng
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/11/04
JO  - Geoscientific Model Development
DO  - 10.5194/gmd-19-10433-2026
UR  - https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/19/10433/2026/
AB  - Kilometre-scale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) simulations over terrain with steep slopes often require strong smoothing to prevent numerical instability, but conventional domain-wide filters alter terrain at every grid point, regardless of whether local slopes require reduction. Slope-Constrained Orography (SCO) is an offline terrain preprocessing method that prescribes a target slope angle θ and adjusts only those grid points whose eight-neighbour elevation differences exceed the implied bound, leaving the remaining terrain unchanged. By prescribing the slope constraint directly, SCO provides a geometrically interpretable primary user-facing parameter for terrain construction and stability testing. In a 1 km WRF case over the highly complex terrain of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau, the least-modified stable SCO member among those tested modifies 14 % of points with a mean elevation change of 8.2 m, compared with 100 % modification and 108.1 m for the corresponding WRF Preprocessing System (WPS) member. The successful SCO configuration produces lower near-surface wind and temperature errors in this case.
SN  - 1991-9603
ER  -