WRF model configuration for seasonal climate forecasting over the Bolivian altiplano

Model configuration is an important aspect of a numerical modeling study. Modern numerical weather prediction models offer a wide variety of parameterization packages and possible tunings that greatly influence model results. In this work, a preliminary methodology and analysis is developed for configuring the Weather Research and Forecasting model over the Bolivian Altiplano for seasonal climate forecasts. Due to data availability issues, this work focuses on a single configuration of the model for a three-month forecast period from October 2002 to January 2003. The model is evaluated using a combination of systemic, non-systemic and total forecast errors relative to the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis. It is found that this configuration of the model performs poorly. Possible reasons for this lack of performance are explored using an empirical orthogonal function analysis of the error. It is expected that the methodology developed here will continue to be useful once a larger subset of configurations becomes available.