scholarly journals Afforestation impact on soil temperature in regional climate model simulations over Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giannis Sofiadis ◽  
Eleni Katragkou ◽  
Edouard L. Davin ◽  
Diana Rechid ◽  
Nathalie de Noblet-Ducoudre ◽  
...  

Abstract. In the context of the first phase of the Euro-CORDEX Flagship Plot Study (FPS) Land Use and Climate Across Scales (LUCAS), we investigate the afforestation impact on the seasonal cycle of soil temperature over the European continent with an ensemble of ten regional climate models (RCMs). For this purpose, each ensemble member performed two idealized land cover experiments in which Europe is covered either by forests or grasslands. The multi-model mean exhibits a reduction of the annual amplitude of soil temperature (AAST) over all European regions, although this not a robust feature among the models. In Mediterranean, the simulated AAST response to afforestation is between −4 K and +2 K while in Scandinavia the inter-model spread ranges from −7 K to +1 K. We then examine the role of changes in the annual amplitude of ground heat flux (AAGHF) and summer soil moisture content (SMC) in determining the effect of afforestation on AAST response. In contrast with the diverging results in AAST, all the models consistently indicate a widespread AAGHF decrease and summer SMC decline due to afforestation. The AAGHF changes effectively explain the largest part of the inter-model variance in AAST response in most regions, while the changes in summer SMC determine the sign of AAST response within a group of three simulations sharing the same land surface model. Finally, we pair FLUXNET sites to compare the simulated results with observation-based evidence of the impact of forest on soil temperature. In line with models, observations indicate a summer ground cooling in forested areas compared to open lands. The vast majority of models agree with the sign of the observed reduction in AAST, although with a large variation in the magnitude of changes. Overall, we aspire to emphasize the effects of afforestation on soil temperature profile with this study, given that changes in the seasonal cycle of soil temperature potentially perturb crucial biochemical processes. Such perturbations can be of societal relevance as afforestation is proposed as a climate change mitigation strategy.

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 709
Author(s):  
Gabriella Zsebeházi ◽  
Sándor István Mahó

Land surface models with detailed urban parameterization schemes provide adequate tools to estimate the impact of climate change in cities, because they rely on the results of the regional climate model, while operating on km scale at low cost. In this paper, the SURFEX land surface model driven by the evaluation and control runs of ALADIN-Climate regional climate model is validated over Budapest from the aspect of urban impact on temperature. First, surface temperature of SURFEX with forcings from ERA-Interim driven ALADIN-Climate was compared against the MODIS land surface temperature for a 3-year period. Second, the impact of the ARPEGE global climate model driven ALADIN-Climate was assessed on the 2 m temperature of SURFEX and was validated against measurements of a suburban station for 30 years. The spatial extent of surface urban heat island (SUHI) is exaggerated in SURFEX from spring to autumn, because the urbanized gridcells are generally warmer than their rural vicinity, while the observed SUHI extent is more variable. The model reasonably simulates the seasonal means and diurnal cycle of the 2 m temperature in the suburban gridpoint, except summer when strong positive bias occurs. However, comparing the two experiments from the aspect of nocturnal UHI, only minor differences arose. The thorough validation underpins the applicability of SURFEX driven by ALADIN-Climate for future urban climate projections.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Fersch ◽  
Alfonso Senatore ◽  
Bianca Adler ◽  
Joël Arnault ◽  
Matthias Mauder ◽  
...  

<p>The land surface and the atmospheric boundary layer are closely intertwined with respect to the exchange of water, trace gases and energy. Nonlinear feedback and scale dependent mechanisms are obvious by observations and theories. Modeling instead is often narrowed to single compartments of the terrestrial system or bound to traditional viewpoints of definite scientific disciplines. Coupled terrestrial hydrometeorological modeling systems attempt to overcome these limitations to achieve a better integration of the processes relevant for regional climate studies and local area weather prediction. We examine the ability of the hydrologically enhanced version of the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF-Hydro) to reproduce the regional water cycle by means of a two-way coupled approach and assess the impact of hydrological coupling with respect to a traditional regional atmospheric model setting. It includes the observation-based calibration of the hydrological model component (offline WRF-Hydro) and a comparison of the classic WRF and the fully coupled WRF-Hydro models both with identical calibrated parameter settings for the land surface model (Noah-MP). The simulations are evaluated based on extensive observations at the pre-Alpine Terrestrial Environmental Observatory (TERENO Pre-Alpine) for the Ammer (600 km²) and Rott (55 km²) river catchments in southern Germany, covering a five month period (Jun–Oct 2016).</p><p>The sensitivity of 7 land surface parameters is tested using the <em>Latin-Hypercube One-factor-At-a-Time</em> (LH-OAT) method and 6 sensitive parameters are subsequently optimized for 6 different subcatchments, using the Model-Independent <em>Parameter Estimation and Uncertainty Analysis software</em> (PEST).</p><p>The calibration of the offline WRF-Hydro leads to Nash-Sutcliffe efficiencies between 0.56 and 0.64 and volumetric efficiencies between 0.46 and 0.81 for the six subcatchments. The comparison of classic WRF and fully coupled WRF-Hydro shows only tiny alterations for radiation and precipitation but considerable changes for moisture- and energy fluxes. By comparison with TERENO Pre-Alpine observations, the fully coupled model slightly outperforms the classic WRF with respect to evapotranspiration, sensible and ground heat flux, near surface mixing ratio, temperature, and boundary layer profiles of air temperature. The subcatchment-based water budgets show uniformly directed variations for evapotranspiration, infiltration excess and percolation whereas soil moisture and precipitation change randomly.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 866 ◽  
pp. 108-111
Author(s):  
Theerapan Saesong ◽  
Pakpoom Ratjiranukool ◽  
Sujittra Ratjiranukool

Numerical Weather Model called The Weather Research and Forecasting model, WRF, developed by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is adapted to be regional climate model. The model is run to perform the daily mean air surface temperatures over northern Thailand in 2010. Boundery dataset provided by National Centers for Environmental Prediction, NCEP FNL, (Final) Operational Global Analysis data which are on 10 x 10. The simulated temperatures by WRF with four land surface options, i.e., no land surface scheme (option 0), thermal diffusion (option 1), Noah land-surface (option 2) and RUC land-surface (option 3) were compared against observational data from Thai Meteorological Department (TMD). Preliminary analysis indicated WRF simulations with Noah scheme were able to reproduce the most reliable daily mean temperatures over northern Thailand.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 1705-1714 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Zabel ◽  
W. Mauser

Abstract. Most land surface hydrological models (LSHMs) consider land surface processes (e.g. soil–plant–atmosphere interactions, lateral water flows, snow and ice) in a spatially detailed manner. The atmosphere is considered as exogenous driver, neglecting feedbacks between the land surface and the atmosphere. On the other hand, regional climate models (RCMs) generally simulate land surface processes through coarse descriptions and spatial scales but include land–atmosphere interactions. What is the impact of the differently applied model physics and spatial resolution of LSHMs on the performance of RCMs? What feedback effects are induced by different land surface models? This study analyses the impact of replacing the land surface module (LSM) within an RCM with a high resolution LSHM. A 2-way coupling approach was applied using the LSHM PROMET (1 × 1 km2) and the atmospheric part of the RCM MM5 (45 × 45 km2). The scaling interface SCALMET is used for down- and upscaling the linear and non-linear fluxes between the model scales. The change in the atmospheric response by MM5 using the LSHM is analysed, and its quality is compared to observations of temperature and precipitation for a 4 yr period from 1996 to 1999 for the Upper Danube catchment. By substituting the Noah-LSM with PROMET, simulated non-bias-corrected near-surface air temperature improves for annual, monthly and daily courses when compared to measurements from 277 meteorological weather stations within the Upper Danube catchment. The mean annual bias was improved from −0.85 to −0.13 K. In particular, the improved afternoon heating from May to September is caused by increased sensible heat flux and decreased latent heat flux as well as more incoming solar radiation in the fully coupled PROMET/MM5 in comparison to the NOAH/MM5 simulation. Triggered by the LSM replacement, precipitation overall is reduced; however simulated precipitation amounts are still of high uncertainty, both spatially and temporally. The distribution of precipitation follows the coarse topography representation in MM5, resulting in a spatial shift of maximum precipitation northwards of the Alps. Consequently, simulation of river runoff inherits precipitation biases from MM5. However, by comparing the water balance, the bias of annual average runoff was improved from 21.2% (NOAH/MM5) to 4.4% (PROMET/MM5) when compared to measurements at the outlet gauge of the Upper Danube watershed in Achleiten.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salomon Eliasson ◽  
Karl Göran Karlsson ◽  
Erik van Meijgaard ◽  
Jan Fokke Meirink ◽  
Martin Stengel ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Cloud_cci satellite simulator has been developed to enable comparisons between the Cloud_cci Climate Data Record (CDR) and climate models. The Cloud_cci simulator is applied here to the EC-Earth Global Climate Model as well as the RACMO Regional Climate Model. We demonstrate the importance of using a satellite simulator that emulates the retrieval process underlying the CDR as opposed to taking the model output directly. The impact of not sampling the model at the local overpass time of the polar-orbiting satellites used to make the dataset was shown to be large, yielding up to 100 % error in Liquid Water Path (LWP) simulations in certain regions. The simulator removes all clouds with optical thickness smaller than 0.2 to emulate the Cloud_cci CDR's lack of sensitivity to very thin clouds. This reduces Total Cloud Fraction (TCF) globally by about 10 % for EC-Earth and by a few percent for RACMO over Europe. Globally, compared to the Cloud_cci CDR, EC-Earth is shown to be mostly in agreement on the distribution of clouds and their height, but it generally underestimates the high cloud fraction associated with tropical convection regions, and overestimates the occurrence and height of clouds over the Sahara and the Arabian sub-continent. In RACMO, TCF is higher than retrieved over the northern Atlantic Ocean, but lower than retrieved over the European continent, where in addition the Cloud Top Pressure (CTP) is underestimated. The results shown here demonstrate again that a simulator is needed to make meaningful comparisons between modelled and retrieved cloud properties. It is promising to see that for (nearly) all cloud properties the simulator improves the agreement of the model with the satellite data.


2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (6) ◽  
pp. 1109-1123 ◽  
Author(s):  
François DuchÊne ◽  
Bert Van Schaeybroeck ◽  
Steven Caluwaerts ◽  
Rozemien De Troch ◽  
Rafiq Hamdi ◽  
...  

AbstractThe demand of city planners for quantitative information on the impact of climate change on the urban environment is increasing. However, such information is usually extracted from decadelong climate projections generated with global or regional climate models (RCMs). Because of their coarse resolution and unsuitable physical parameterization, however, their model output is not adequate to be used at city scale. A full dynamical downscaling to city level, on the other hand, is computationally too expensive for climatological time scales. A statistical–dynamical computationally inexpensive method is therefore proposed that approximates well the behavior of the full dynamical downscaling approach. The approach downscales RCM simulations using the combination of an RCM at high resolution (H-RES) and a land surface model (LSM). The method involves the setup of a database of urban signatures by running an H-RES RCM with and without urban parameterization for a relatively short period. Using an analog approach, these signatures are first selectively added to the long-term RCM data, which are then used as forcing for an LSM using an urban parameterization in a stand-alone mode. A comparison with a full dynamical downscaling approach is presented for the city of Brussels, Belgium, for 30 summers with the combined ALADIN–AROME model (ALARO-0) coupled to the Surface Externalisée model (SURFEX) as H-RES RCM and SURFEX as LSM. The average bias of the nocturnal urban heat island during heat waves is vanishingly small, and the RMSE is strongly reduced. Not only is the statistical–dynamical approach able to correct the heat-wave number and intensities, it can also improve intervariable correlations and multivariate and temporally correlated indices, such as Humidex.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Peng Cai ◽  
Rafiq Hamdi ◽  
Huili He ◽  
Geping Luo ◽  
Jin Wang ◽  
...  

The rapid oasis expansion and urbanization that occurred in Xinjiang province (China) in the last decades have greatly modified the land surface energy balance and influenced the local circulation under the arid mountains-plain background system. In this study, we first evaluated the ALARO regional climate model coupled to the land surface scheme SURFEX at 4 km resolution using 53 national climatological stations and 5 automatic weather stations. We found that the model correctly simulates daily and hourly variation of 2 m temperature and relative humidity. A 4-day clear sky period has been chosen to study both local atmospheric circulations and their mutual interaction. Observations and simulations both show that a low-level divergence over oasis appears between 19:00 and 21:00 Beijing Time when the background mountain-plain wind system is weak. The model simulates a synergistic interaction between the oasis-desert breeze and urban-rural breeze from 16:00 until 22:00 with a maximum effect at 20:00 when the downdraft over oasis (updraft over urban) areas increases by 0.8 (0.4) Pa/s. The results show that the oasis expansion decreases the nocturnal urban heat island in the city of Urumqi by 0.8 °C, while the impact of urban expansion on the oasis cold island is negligible.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 2285-2298 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. I. Stegehuis ◽  
R. Vautard ◽  
P. Ciais ◽  
A. J. Teuling ◽  
D. G. Miralles ◽  
...  

Abstract. Many climate models have difficulties in properly reproducing climate extremes, such as heat wave conditions. Here we use the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model with a large combination of different atmospheric physics schemes, in combination with the NOAH land-surface scheme, with the goal of detecting the most sensitive physics and identifying those that appear most suitable for simulating the heat wave events of 2003 in western Europe and 2010 in Russia. In total, 55 out of 216 simulations combining different atmospheric physical schemes have a temperature bias smaller than 1 °C during the heat wave episodes, the majority of simulations showing a cold bias of on average 2–3 °C. Conversely, precipitation is mostly overestimated prior to heat waves, and shortwave radiation is slightly overestimated. Convection is found to be the most sensitive atmospheric physical process impacting simulated heat wave temperature across four different convection schemes in the simulation ensemble. Based on these comparisons, we design a reduced ensemble of five well performing and diverse scheme configurations, which may be used in the future to perform heat wave analysis and to investigate the impact of climate change during summer in Europe.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Asmus ◽  
Peter Hoffmann ◽  
Diana Rechid ◽  
Jürgen Böhner

<p><span>Large parts of the earth’s land surface are modified by humans. Since the land surface and the atmosphere are constantly in energy exchange and in interactions with each other, anthropogenic modifications of the land’s surface can lead to effects on the climate. The objective of this study is to quantify and investigate the effects and feedbacks of irrigation on the local to regional climate. Irrigation is a land use practice, which does not change the land cover type but changes the biophysical properties of the land’s surface and the soil and thus alters energy and moisture fluxes. These local to regional process responses, detectable in different meteorological variables, are investigated using the regional climate model REMO. High resolution simulations at convection permitting scales will be performed in order to particularly investigate irrigation effects on the spatiotemporal behavior of moist convection. Newly developed parameterizations of different types of irrigation are tested on the example of a northern Italian model domain, where cropland and rice paddies are the dominating land cover. The focus of the sensitivity study is on the impact of the parameterizations on the surface moisture and energy balance as well as on heavy rainfall events. </span></p>


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