Inclusion of the ECMWF ecRad radiation scheme (v1.5.0) in the MAR model (v3.14), regional evaluation for Belgium and assessment of surface shortwave spectral fluxes at Uccle observatory

Abstract. The MAR model (Modèle Atmosphérique Régional) is a regional climate model used for weather forecasting and climate studies over several continents, including polar regions. To simulate how solar and Earth’s infrared radiation propagate through the atmosphere and drive climate, MAR uses the Morcrette radiation scheme. Last updated in the 2000’s, this scheme is no longer maintained and lacks of flexibility to add new capabilities, such as computing high resolution spectral fluxes.

This paper presents version 3.14 of MAR, an update that allows MAR to run with ecRad, the latest radiation scheme provided by the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecast (ECMWF). Operational in the ECMWF’s Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) since 2017, ecRad was designed with modularity in mind and is still in active development.

We evaluate the updated MAR by comparing its outputs over 2011–2020 for Belgium to gridded data provided by the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (RMIB) and by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Land Surface Analysis. Several sensitivity experiments have been carried out to find the configuration achieving the most balanced radiative budget as well as to demonstrate the updated MAR outperforms its former configuration. Moreover, a MAR simulation running ecRad with high resolution ecCKD gas-optics models has been conducted to produce spectral shortwave fluxes, which are compared to ground-based spectral measurements captured by the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BISA) at Uccle (Belgium; 50.797° N, 4.357° E) in the 280–500 nm range from 2017 to 2020. Finally, as a first application of spectral shortwave fluxes computed by MAR running with ecRad, a method for predicting UV indices is described and evaluated.