WRF dynamical core for LES/mesoscale simulations

WRF is a mesoscale numerical weather prediction system designed for both atmospheric research and operational forecasting applications WRF presentation.

In the PCM, we take advantage of the dynamical core of the WRF model to run LES (large-eddy simulations) or mesoscale simulations.

To do so, we take the WRF model, remove all its physical packages linked to Earth's atmosphere, and plug in the physical package from the PCM (either Venus, Mars, Titan, or Generic).

A description of the various equations solved by WRF can be found here: Skamarock et al. (2019, 2021).

Descriptions of the application of WRF dynamical with the PCM can be found in:

- Noé CLEMENT's PhD thesis (chapter 3) for the Generic PCM.

- Maxence Lefevre's PhD thesis for the Venus PCM.

Studies with the PCM coupled to the WRF dynamical core have been done using WRFV2, WRFV3, WRFV4.

Our aim is now to use WRFV4 as much as possible, which offers significant improvements in terms of numerical schemes in particular.

Here is a list of studies using the PCM coupled to the WRF dynamical core:

Planet	Reference	Physical package	Dynamical core
Mars	Spiga and Forget 2009	Mars PCM	WRF V2
Mars	Spiga et al. 2010	Mars PCM	WRF V3
Venus	Lefèvre et al. 2017	Venus PCM	WRF V3
Exoplanets	Lefèvre et al. 2021	Generic PCM	WRF V3
Exoplanets	Leconte et al. 2024	Generic PCM	WRF V4
Uranus, Neptune	Clément et al. 2024	Generic PCM	WRF V4