Modeling the Summertime Climate of Southwest Asia: The Role of Land Surface Processes in Shaping the Climate of Semiarid Regions

Presented is a study on the role of land surface processes in determining the summertime climate over the semiarid region of southwest Asia. In this region, a warm surface air temperature bias of 3.5°C is simulated in the summer by using the standard configuration of Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3). Biases are also simulated in surface albedo (underestimation), shortwave incident radiation (overestimation), and vapor pressure (underestimation). Based on satellite measurements documented in NASA’s surface radiation budget (SRB) dataset, a correction in surface albedo by 4% is introduced in RegCM3 to match the observed SRB data. Increasing albedo values results in a nearly 1°C cooling over the region. In addition, by incorporating RegCM3’s dust module and including subgrid variability for surface wind, shortwave incident radiation bias originally of about 45 W m−2 is reduced by 30 W m−2. As a result, the reduction of shortwave incident radiation cools the surface by 0.6°C. Finally, including a representation for the irrigation and marshlands of Mesopotamia produces surface relative humidity values closer to observations, thus eliminating a nearly 5-mb vapor pressure dry bias over some of the region. Consequently, the representation of irrigation and marshlands results in cooling of nearly 1°C in areas downwind of the actual land-cover change. Along with identified biases in observational datasets, these combined processes explain the 3.5°C warm bias in RegCM3 simulations. Therefore, it is found that accurate representations of surface albedo, dust emissions, and irrigation are important in correctly modeling summertime climates of semiarid regions.