Improving first‐order snow‐related deficiencies in a regional climate model

Liston, Glen E.; Pielke, Roger A.; Greene, Ethan

doi:10.1029/1999jd900055

Cited by 88 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Some studies proposed a correction term allowing for the precipitation to increase linearly with height in the form: 1 P vint = P obs (1 − β z) when z i is higher than z obs , and equal to 0 when z i is lower that z obs (e.g., Liston et al, 1999). In this correction term, β is a station-dependent parameter whose value has to be determined with care.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity Analysis of Snow Cover to Climate Change Scenarios and Their Impact on Plant Habitats in Alpine Terrain

2005

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Abstract. In high altitude areas snow cover duration largely determines the length of the growing season of the vegetation. A sensitivity study of snow cover to various scenarios of temperature and precipitation has been conducted to assess how snow cover and vegetation may respond for a very localized area of the high Swiss Alps (2050-2500 m above sea level). A surface energy balance model has been upgraded to compute snow depth and duration, taking into account solar radiation geometry over complex topography. Plant habitat zones have been defined and 23 species, whose photoperiodic preferences were documented in an earlier study, were grouped into each zone.The sensitivity of snowmelt to a change in mean, minimum and maximum temperature alone and a change in mean temperature combined with a precipitation change of +10% in winter and −10% in summer is investigated. A seasonal increase in the mean temperature of 3 to 5 K reduces snow cover depth and duration by more than a month on average. Snow melts two months earlier in the rock habitat zone with the mean temperature scenario than under current climate conditions. This allows the species in this habitat to flower earlier in a warmer climate, but not all plants are able to adapt to such changes.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity Analysis of Snow Cover to Climate Change Scenarios and Their Impact on Plant Habitats in Alpine Terrain

2005

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“…We assume that the smoothing out of smallscale snow depth heterogeneities originating from processes such as snowdrift or avalanches reveals the large-scale topographic influences on precipitation and the shortwave radiation balance. Our hypothesis is motivated by the observation of Liston et al (1999), in that, in contrast to summer convective-precipitation systems, the spatial distribution of winter precipitation is more influenced by topographic distributions. Furthermore, it is motivated by the results of Grünewald et al (2013) and Melvold and Skaugen (2013), which confirmed that the snow depth distribution is dominated by topography at scales of several hundred meters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Frequently, they lack a subgrid snow distribution representation which is a shortcoming that deteriorates atmospheric interaction simulations (cf. Liston et al, 1999). In general, the purpose of subgrid parameterizations is to account for subgrid scale processes, i.e., unresolved processes, with analytical approximations in largescale model systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fractional snow-covered area parameterization over complex topography

Helbig¹,

Herwijnen²,

Magnusson³

et al. 2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

118

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Abstract. Fractional snow-covered area (SCA) is a key parameter in large-scale hydrological, meteorological and regional climate models. Since SCA affects albedos and surface energy balance fluxes, it is especially of interest over mountainous terrain where generally a reduced SCA is observed in large grid cells. Temporal and spatial snow distributions are, however, difficult to measure over complex topography. We therefore present a parameterization of SCA based on a new subgrid parameterization for the standard deviation of snow depth over complex topography. Highly resolved snow depth data at the peak of winter were used from two distinct climatic regions, in eastern Switzerland and in the Spanish Pyrenees. Topographic scaling parameters are derived assuming Gaussian slope characteristics. We use computationally cheap terrain parameters, namely, the correlation length of subgrid topographic features and the mean squared slope. A scale dependent analysis was performed by randomly aggregating the alpine catchments in domain sizes ranging from 50 m to 3 km. For the larger domain sizes, snow depth was predominantly normally distributed. Trends between terrain parameters and standard deviation of snow depth were similar for both climatic regions, allowing one to parameterize the standard deviation of snow depth based on terrain parameters. To make the parameterization widely applicable, we introduced the mean snow depth as a climate indicator. Assuming a normal snow distribution and spatially homogeneous melt, snow-cover depletion (SCD) curves were derived for a broad range of coefficients of variations. The most accurate closed form fit resembled an existing fractional SCA parameterization. By including the subgrid parameterization for the standard deviation of snow depth, we extended the fractional SCA parameterization for topographic influences.For all domain sizes we obtained errors lower than 10 % between measured and parameterized SCA.

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“…Such deterministic high-resolution modeling facilitates a better comparison and validation with ground observations but is restricted to small model domains for computational reasons. However, SnowModel also includes the ability to sim- ulate snow distributions over large areas (e.g., the ice-free parts of Greenland, several 100 000 km 2 ) using, for example, subgrid snow distribution representations (e.g., Liston et al, 1999;Liston, 2004;Liston and Hiemstra, 2011). Gisnås et al (2014) recently presented a statistical approach to account for the impact of the small-scale variability of snow depths on ground temperatures that is applicable on large spatial domains.…”

Section: Scaling Strategies From Gcm To Plot Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Future permafrost conditions along environmental gradients in Zackenberg, Greenland

et al. 2015

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Abstract. The future development of ground temperatures in permafrost areas is determined by a number of factors varying on different spatial and temporal scales. For sound projections of impacts of permafrost thaw, scaling procedures are of paramount importance. We present numerical simulations of present and future ground temperatures at 10 m resolution for a 4 km long transect across the lower Zackenberg valley in northeast Greenland. The results are based on stepwise downscaling of future projections derived from general circulation model using observational data, snow redistribution modeling, remote sensing data and a ground thermal model. A comparison to in situ measurements of thaw depths at two CALM sites and near-surface ground temperatures at 17 sites suggests agreement within 0.10 m for the maximum thaw depth and 1 • C for annual average ground temperature. Until 2100, modeled ground temperatures at 10 m depth warm by about 5 • C and the active layer thickness increases by about 30 %, in conjunction with a warming of average near-surface summer soil temperatures by 2 • C. While ground temperatures at 10 m depth remain below 0 • C until 2100 in all model grid cells, positive annual average temperatures are modeled at 1 m depth for a few years and grid cells at the end of this century. The ensemble of all 10 m model grid cells highlights the significant spatial variability of the ground thermal regime which is not accessible in traditional coarse-scale modeling approaches.

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Improving first‐order snow‐related deficiencies in a regional climate model

Cited by 88 publications

References 25 publications

Sensitivity Analysis of Snow Cover to Climate Change Scenarios and Their Impact on Plant Habitats in Alpine Terrain

Sensitivity Analysis of Snow Cover to Climate Change Scenarios and Their Impact on Plant Habitats in Alpine Terrain

Fractional snow-covered area parameterization over complex topography

Future permafrost conditions along environmental gradients in Zackenberg, Greenland

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