Enhancing the representation of subgrid land surface characteristics in land surface models

Ke, Yinghai; Leung, L. Ruby; Huang, Maoyi; Li, Hong Yi

doi:10.5194/gmd-6-1609-2013

Cited by 24 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(35 reference statements)

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“…Land surface components of Earth system models are central in representing the interactions between terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere [Fisher et al, 2014b;Davison et al, 2016]. Realistic representation of land surface heterogeneity is fundamental for predicting key land processes such as GPP and RE [Ke et al, 2013]. Particularly, subgrid heterogeneity in vegetation and topography can significantly influence the estimates of energy and mass fluxes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex terrain influences ecosystem carbon responses to temperature and precipitation

Reyes

Epstein

et al. 2017

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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Terrestrial ecosystem responses to temperature and precipitation have major implications for the global carbon cycle. Case studies demonstrate that complex terrain, which accounts for more than 50% of Earth's land surface, can affect ecological processes associated with land‐atmosphere carbon fluxes. However, no studies have addressed the role of complex terrain in mediating ecophysiological responses of land‐atmosphere carbon fluxes to climate variables. We synthesized data from AmeriFlux towers and found that for sites in complex terrain, responses of ecosystem CO2 fluxes to temperature and precipitation are organized according to terrain slope and drainage area, variables associated with water and energy availability. Specifically, we found that for tower sites in complex terrain, mean topographic slope and drainage area surrounding the tower explained between 51% and 78% of site‐to‐site variation in the response of CO2 fluxes to temperature and precipitation depending on the time scale. We found no such organization among sites in flat terrain, even though their flux responses exhibited similar ranges. These results challenge prevailing conceptual framework in terrestrial ecosystem modeling that assumes that CO2 fluxes derive from vertical soil‐plant‐climate interactions. We conclude that the terrain in which ecosystems are situated can also have important influences on CO2 responses to temperature and precipitation. This work has implications for about 14% of the total land area of the conterminous U.S. This area is considered topographically complex and contributes to approximately 15% of gross ecosystem carbon production in the conterminous U.S.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex terrain influences ecosystem carbon responses to temperature and precipitation

Reyes

Epstein

et al. 2017

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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“…Simulations of high spatial resolution can be used for climate impact assessments, as they can better resolve physical processes of regional, mesoscale and local scale circulation effects (surface fluxes, breezes, convection and heavy precipitation) [26]. In addition, such high spatial resolution simulations are imperative when the topography of the region is rather complex with mountainous features and rough coastlines, because of the improved representation of surface characteristics and their spatial variability [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Sensitivity Study of High-Resolution Climate Simulations for Greece

Politi

Sfetsos

Vlachogiannis

et al. 2020

Climate

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In the present study, the ability of the Advanced Weather Research and Forecasting numerical model (WRF-ARW) to perform climate regionalization studies in the topographically complex region of Greece, was examined in order to explore the possibility of a more reliable selection of physical schemes for the simulation of historical and future high resolution (5 km) climate model experiments to investigate the impact of climate change. This work is directly linked to a previous study investigating the performance of seven different model setups for one year, from which the need was derived for further examination of four different simulations to investigate the model sensitivity on the representation of surface variables statistics during a 5-year period. The results have been compared with observational data for maximum and minimum air temperature and daily precipitation through statistical analysis. Clear similarities were found in precipitation patterns among simulations and observations, yielding smoothly its inter-annual variability, especially during the wettest months and summer periods, with the lowest positive percentage BIAS calculated at about 19% for the selected combination of physics parameterizations (PP3). Regarding the maximum and minimum temperature, statistical analysis showed a high correlation above 0.9, and negative bias around 1−1.5 °C, and positive bias near 2 °C, respectively.

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“…Accurate modelling of such systems must therefore determine whether the SG processes variability is relevant for the given context. If it is, some of the impact of this SG variability may be captured in a parameterized form (Seth et al, 1994;Leung and Ghan, 1995;Marshall and Clarke, 1999;Giorgi et al, 2003;Ke et al, 2013). For ex-ample, to improve surface mass balance in continental-scale ice sheet models, Marshall and Clarke (1999) used hypsometric curves, which represent the cumulative distribution function of the surface elevation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The CG ice thickness updating accounts for SG ice thickness, and the SG model accounts for ice flux out of the CG cell. For the first time, we evaluate the accuracy of the SG model against high resolution simulations by a higher order ice sheet model (ISSM; Larour et al, 2012). Sensitivities to the SG model configuration, such as the number of hypsometric bins, are assessed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new sub-grid surface mass balance and flux model for continental-scale ice sheet modelling: testing and last glacial cycle

et al. 2015

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Abstract. To investigate ice sheet evolution over the timescale of a glacial cycle, 3-D ice sheet models (ISMs) are typically run at "coarse" grid resolutions (10–50 km) that do not resolve individual mountains. This will introduce to-date unquantified errors in sub-grid (SG) transport, accumulation and ablation for regions of rough topography. In the past, synthetic hypsometric curves, a statistical summary of the topography, have been used in ISMs to describe the variability of these processes. However, there has yet to be detailed uncertainty analysis of this approach. We develop a new flow line SG model for embedding in coarse resolution models. A 1 km resolution digital elevation model was used to compute the local hypsometric curve for each coarse grid (CG) cell and to determine local parameters to represent the hypsometric bins' slopes and widths. The 1-D mass transport for the SG model is computed with the shallow ice approximation. We test this model against simulations from the 3-D Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM) run at 1 km grid resolution. Results show that none of the alternative parameterizations explored were able to adequately capture SG surface mass balance and flux processes. Via glacial cycle ensemble results for North America, we quantify the impact of SG model coupling in an ISM. We show that SG process representation and associated parametric uncertainties, related to the exchange of ice between the SG and CG cells, can have significant (up to 35 m eustatic sea level equivalent for the North American ice complex) impact on modelled ice sheet evolution.

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Enhancing the representation of subgrid land surface characteristics in land surface models

Cited by 24 publications

References 24 publications

Complex terrain influences ecosystem carbon responses to temperature and precipitation

Complex terrain influences ecosystem carbon responses to temperature and precipitation

A Sensitivity Study of High-Resolution Climate Simulations for Greece

A new sub-grid surface mass balance and flux model for continental-scale ice sheet modelling: testing and last glacial cycle

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