Quintana‐Seguí et al. (2016) Meteorological Analysis Systems in North-East Spain: Validation of SAFRAN and SPAN

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Environmental Informatics
• Year: 2016
• Authors: Pere Quintana Seguí, Candelas Peral
• DOI: 10.3808/jei.201600335

Research Groups

• Observatori de l'Ebre (OE), Universitat Ramon Lull-CSIC, Roquetes, Spain
• Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (AEMET), Madrid, Spain
• Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), Barcelona, Spain
• Departament d'Astronomia i Meteorologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
• CNRM, UMR 3589, Météo-France/CNRS, Toulouse, France
• IRSTEA, UR RECOVER, Aix-en-Provence, France

Short Summary

This study applies and validates the SAFRAN meteorological analysis system in north-east Spain for hydrological applications, finding that its performance is similar to the operational SPAN system and suitable for forcing high-resolution land surface models, despite limitations over steep terrain.

Objective

• Validate the application and performance of the SAFRAN meteorological analysis system outside of its native domain (France) by applying it to north-east Spain.
• Compare SAFRAN's performance against the operational SPAN analysis system and the HIRLAM-HNR meteorological model to assess their suitability for forcing high-resolution land surface models in the region.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: North-East Spain, focusing on areas relevant to hydrological studies (e.g., Ebro river basin, Pyrenees). High-resolution grid analysis.
• Temporal Scale: One year of observational data used for validation.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: SAFRAN (Système d'Analyse Fournissant des Renseignements Atmosphériques à l'Hydrologie), SPAN (operational analysis system), HIRLAM-HNR (meteorological model). SAFRAN utilizes optimal interpolation and the assumption of climatically homogeneous zones (tested using both AEMET meteorological warning zones and hydrological catchments).
• Data sources: One year of observational data used for validation and comparison of the analysis systems.

Main Results

• Both SAFRAN and SPAN demonstrated similar performance in north-east Spain, and this performance was comparable to SAFRAN's established performance in France.
• Both systems are deemed good tools for forcing high-resolution land surface models in the study area.
• When configuring SAFRAN, better results were obtained using meteorological warning zones to define climatically homogeneous areas compared to using hydrological catchments, although the difference was small.
• Consistent with previous findings in France, SAFRAN exhibited limitations in north-east Spain, including unrealistic spatial structure of the fields and underestimation of wind speed.
• Both SAFRAN and SPAN performed better in flat areas than over areas of steep relief, which poses a challenge for hydrological studies, particularly in the Ebro river basin where runoff is largely generated in the Pyrenees.

Contributions

• First study demonstrating the application and validation of the SAFRAN meteorological analysis system outside of France.
• First comparative analysis between the SAFRAN and SPAN analysis systems.
• First validation of SPAN's rainfall values using observational data.

Funding

• [Information not provided in the abstract text.]

Citation

@article{QuintanaSeguí2016Meteorological,
  author = {Quintana‐Seguí, Pere and Peral, Candelas},
  title = {Meteorological Analysis Systems in North-East Spain: Validation of SAFRAN and SPAN},
  journal = {Journal of Environmental Informatics},
  year = {2016},
  doi = {10.3808/jei.201600335},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3808/jei.201600335}
}

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