scholarly journals Evaluating the Utah Energy Balance's (UEB) snow model in the Noah Land-Surface Model

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 13363-13406
Author(s):  
R. Sultana ◽  
K.-L. Hsu ◽  
J. Li ◽  
S. Sorooshian

Abstract. Noah (version 2.7.1), the community land-surface model (LSM) of NCEP-NCAR, which is widely used to describe the land-surface processes either in stand-alone or in coupled land–atmospheric model systems, is recognized because snow–water equivalent (SWE) can be underestimated. Noah's SWE bias can be attributed to its simple snow sub-model, which does not effectively describe the physical processes during snow accumulation and melt period. To improve SWE simulation in the Noah LSM, the Utah Energy Balance (UEB) snow model is implemented in Noah to test alternate snow-surface temperature and snow-melt outflow schemes. Snow surface temperature was estimated using force–restore method and snow melt event is regulated by accounting for the internal energy of the snowpack. The modified Noah SWE is compared with the SWE observed at California's NRCS SNOTEL stations for seven water years: 2002–2008, while the model snow-surface temperature is verified with observed surface-temperature data at an observation site in Utah. The experiments show that modification in Noah's snow process substantially reduced SWE estimation bias while keeping the simplicity of the Noah LSM. The results suggest that the model did not benefit from the alternate temperature representation but primary improvement can be attributed to the substituted snow melt process.

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 3553-3570 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Sultana ◽  
K.-L. Hsu ◽  
J. Li ◽  
S. Sorooshian

Abstract. Noah (version 2.7.1), the community land-surface model (LSM) of National Centers for Environmental Predictions-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR), which is widely used to describe the land-surface processes either in stand-alone or in coupled land-atmospheric model systems, is recognized to underestimate snow–water equivalent (SWE). Noah's SWE bias can be attributed to its simple snow sub-model, which does not effectively describe the physical processes during snow accumulation and melt period. To improve SWE simulation in the Noah LSM, the Utah Energy Balance (UEB) snow model is implemented in Noah to test alternate snow surface temperature and snowmelt outflow schemes. Snow surface temperature was estimated using the force-restore method and snowmelt event is regulated by accounting for the internal energy of the snowpack. The modified Noah's SWE simulations are compared with the SWE observed at California's NRCS SNOTEL stations for 7 water years: 2002–2008, while the model's snow surface temperature is verified with observed surface-temperature data at an observation site in Utah. The experiments show that modification in Noah's snow process substantially reduced SWE estimation bias while keeping the simplicity of the Noah LSM. The results suggest that the model did not benefit from the alternate temperature representation but primary improvement can be attributed to the substituted snowmelt process.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. S. Benavides Pinjosovsky ◽  
S. Thiria ◽  
C. Ottlé ◽  
J. Brajard ◽  
F. Badran ◽  
...  

Abstract. The SECHIBA module of the ORCHIDEE land surface model describes the exchanges of water and energy between the surface and the atmosphere. In the present paper, the adjoint semi-generator software denoted YAO was used as a framework to implement a 4D-VAR assimilation method. The objective was to deliver the adjoint model of SECHIBA (SECHIBA-YAO) obtained with YAO to provide an opportunity for scientists and end users to perform their own assimilation. SECHIBA-YAO allows the control of the eleven most influent internal parameters of SECHIBA or of the initial conditions of the soil water content by observing the land surface temperature measured in situ or as it could be observed by remote sensing as brightness temperature. The paper presents the fundamental principles of the 4D-Var assimilation, the semi-generator software YAO and some experiments showing the accuracy of the adjoint code distributed. In addition, a distributed version is available when only the land surface temperature is observed.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanneke Luijting ◽  
Dagrun Vikhamar-Schuler ◽  
Trygve Aspelien ◽  
Mariken Homleid

Abstract. In Norway, thirty percent of the annual precipitation falls as snow. Knowledge of the snow reservoir is therefore important for energy production and water resource management. The land surface model SURFEX with the detailed snowpack scheme Crocus (SURFEX/Crocus) has been run with a grid spacing of approximately 1 km over an area in southern Norway for two years (01 September 2014–31 August 2016), using two different forcing data sets: 1) hourly meteorological forecasts from the operational weather forecast model AROME MetCoOp (2.5 km grid spacing), and 2) gridded hourly observations of temperature and precipitation (1 km grid spacing) in combination with the meteorological forecasts from AROME MetCoOp. We present an evaluation of the modeled snow depth and snow cover, as compared to point observations of snow depth and to MODIS satellite images of the snow-covered area. The evaluation focuses on snow accumulation and snow melt. The results are promising. Both experiments are capable of simulating the snow pack over the two winter seasons, but there is an overestimation of snow depth when using only meteorological forecasts from AROME MetCoOp, although the snow-covered area throughout the melt season is better represented by this experiment. The errors, when using AROME MetCoOp as forcing, accumulate over the snow season, showing that assimilation of snow depth observations into SURFEX/Crocus might be necessary when using only meteorological forecasts as forcing. When using gridded observations, the simulation of snow depth is significantly improved, which shows that using a combination of gridded observations and meteorological forecasts to force a snowpack model is very useful and can give better results than only using meteorological forecasts. There is however an underestimation of snow ablation in both experiments. This is mainly due to the absence of wind-induced erosion of snow in the SURFEX/Crocus model, underestimated snow melt and biases in the forcing data.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hector Simon Benavides Pinjosovsky ◽  
Sylvie Thiria ◽  
Catherine Ottlé ◽  
Julien Brajard ◽  
Fouad Badran ◽  
...  

Abstract. The SECHIBA module of the ORCHIDEE land surface model describes the exchanges of water and energy between the surface and the atmosphere. In the present paper, the adjoint semi-generator software called YAO was used as a framework to implement a 4D-VAR assimilation scheme of observations in SECHIBA. The objective was to deliver the adjoint model of SECHIBA (SECHIBA-YAO) obtained with YAO to provide an opportunity for scientists and end users to perform their own assimilation. SECHIBA-YAO allows the control of the 11 most influential internal parameters of the soil water content, by observing the land surface temperature or remote sensing data such as the brightness temperature. The paper presents the fundamental principles of the 4D-VAR assimilation, the semi-generator software YAO and a large number of experiments showing the accuracy of the adjoint code in different conditions (sites, PFTs, seasons). In addition, a distributed version is available in the case for which only the land surface temperature is observed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 3101
Author(s):  
Donghang Shao ◽  
Wenbo Xu ◽  
Hongyi Li ◽  
Jian Wang ◽  
Xiaohua Hao

Snow surface spectral reflectance is very important in the Earth’s climate system. Traditional land surface models with parameterized schemes can simulate broadband snow surface albedo but cannot accurately simulate snow surface spectral reflectance with continuous and fine spectral wavebands, which constitute the major observations of current satellite sensors; consequently, there is an obvious gap between land surface model simulations and remote sensing observations. Here, we suggest a new integrated scheme that couples a radiative transfer model with a land surface model to simulate high spectral resolution snow surface reflectance information specifically targeting multisource satellite remote sensing observations. Our results indicate that the new integrated model can accurately simulate snow surface reflectance information over a large spatial scale and continuous time series. The integrated model extends the range of snow spectral reflectance simulation to the whole shortwave band and can predict snow spectral reflectance changes in the solar spectrum region based on meteorological element data. The kappa coefficients (K) of both the narrowband snow albedo targeting Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data simulated by the new integrated model and the retrieved snow albedo based on MODIS reflectance data are 0.5, and both exhibit good spatial consistency. Our proposed narrowband snow albedo simulation scheme targeting satellite remote sensing observations is consistent with remote sensing satellite observations in time series and can predict narrowband snow albedo even during periods of missing remote sensing observations. This new integrated model is a significant improvement over traditional land surface models for the direct spectral observations of satellite remote sensing. The proposed model could contribute to the effective combination of snow surface reflectance information from multisource remote sensing observations with land surface models.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Bernus ◽  
Catherine Ottle ◽  
Nina Raoult

<p>Lakes play a major role on local climate and boundary layer stratification. At global scale, they have been shown to have an impact on the energy budget, (see for example Le Moigne et al., 2016 or Bonan, 1995 ) . To represent the energy budget of lakes at a global scale, the FLake (Mironov et al, 2008) lake model has been coupled to the ORCHIDEE land surface model - the continental part of the IPSL earth system model. By including Flake in ORCHIDEE, we aim to improve the representation of land surface temperature and heat fluxes. Using the standard CMIP6 configuration of ORCHIDEE,  two 40-year simulations were generated (one coupled with FLake and one without) using the CRUJRA meteorological forcing data at a spatial resolution of 0.5°. We compare land surface temperatures and heat fluxes from the two ORCHIDEE simulations and assess the impacts of lakes on surface energy budgets. MODIS satellite land surface temperature products will be used to validate the simulations. We expect a better fit between the simulated land surface temperature and the MODIS data when the FLake configuration is used. The preliminary results of the comparison will be presented.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (16) ◽  
pp. 4722-4740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos L. Pérez-Díaz ◽  
Tarendra Lakhankar ◽  
Peter Romanov ◽  
Jonathan Muñoz ◽  
Reza Khanbilvardi ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 631-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Magand ◽  
Agnès Ducharne ◽  
Nicolas Le Moine ◽  
Simon Gascoin

Abstract The Durance watershed (14 000 km2), located in the French Alps, generates 10% of French hydropower and provides drinking water to 3 million people. The Catchment land surface model (CLSM), a distributed land surface model (LSM) with a multilayer, physically based snow model, has been applied in the upstream part of this watershed, where snowfall accounts for 50% of the precipitation. The CLSM subdivides the upper Durance watershed, where elevations range from 800 to 4000 m within 3580 km2, into elementary catchments with an average area of 500 km2. The authors first show the difference between the dynamics of the accumulation and ablation of the snow cover using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images and snow-depth measurements. The extent of snow cover increases faster during accumulation than during ablation because melting occurs at preferential locations. This difference corresponds to the presence of a hysteresis in the snow-cover depletion curve of these catchments, and the CLSM was adapted by implementing such a hysteresis in the snow-cover depletion curve of the model. Different simulations were performed to assess the influence of the parameterizations on the water budget and the evolution of the extent of the snow cover. Using six gauging stations, the authors demonstrate that introducing a hysteresis in the snow-cover depletion curve improves melting dynamics. They conclude that their adaptation of the CLSM contributes to a better representation of snowpack dynamics in an LSM that enables mountainous catchments to be modeled for impact studies such as those of climate change.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1605-1619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin G. De Kauwe ◽  
Christopher M. Taylor ◽  
Philip P. Harris ◽  
Graham P. Weedon ◽  
Richard. J. Ellis

Abstract Land–atmosphere feedbacks play an important role in the weather and climate of many semiarid regions. These feedbacks are strongly controlled by how the surface responds to precipitation events, which regulate the return of heat and moisture to the atmosphere. Characteristics of the surface can result in both differing amplitudes and rates of warming following rain. Spectral analysis is used to quantify these surface responses to rainfall events using land surface temperature (LST) derived from Earth observations (EOs). The authors analyzed two mesoscale regions in the Sahel and identified distinct differences in the strength of the short-term (<5 days) spectral variance, notably, a shift toward lower-frequency variability in forest pixels relative to nonforest areas and an increase in amplitude with decreasing vegetation cover. Consistent with these spectral signatures, areas of forest and, to a lesser extent, grassland regions were found to warm up more slowly than sparsely vegetated or barren pixels. The authors applied the same spectral analysis method to simulated LST data from the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) land surface model. A reasonable level of agreement was found with the EO spectral analysis for two contrasting land surface regions. However, JULES shows a significant underestimate in the magnitude of the observed response to rain compared to EOs. A sensitivity analysis of the JULES model highlights an unrealistically high level of soil water availability as a key deficiency, which dampens the models response to rainfall events.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujay Kumar ◽  
David Mocko ◽  
Carrie Vuyovich ◽  
Christa Peters-Lidard

Surface albedo has a significant impact in determining the amount of available net radiation at the surface and the evolution of surface water and energy budget components. The snow accumulation and timing of melt, in particular, are directly impacted by the changes in land surface albedo. This study presents an evaluation of the impact of assimilating Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-based surface albedo estimates in the Noah multi-parameterization (Noah-MP) land surface model, over the continental US during the time period from 2000 to 2017. The evaluation of simulated snow depth and snow cover fields show that significant improvements from data assimilation (DA) are obtained over the High Plains and parts of the Rocky Mountains. Earlier snowmelt and reduced agreements with reference snow depth measurements, primarily over the Northeast US, are also observed due to albedo DA. Most improvements from assimilation are observed over locations with moderate vegetation and lower elevation. The aggregate impact on evapotranspiration and runoff from assimilation is found to be marginal. This study also evaluates the relative and joint utility of assimilating fractional snow cover and surface albedo measurements. Relative to surface albedo assimilation, fractional snow cover assimilation is found to provide smaller improvements in the simulated snow depth fields. The configuration that jointly assimilates surface albedo and fractional snow cover measurements is found to provide the most beneficial improvements compared to the univariate DA configurations for surface albedo or fractional snow cover. Overall, the study also points to the need for improving the albedo formulations in land surface models and the incorporation of observational uncertainties within albedo DA configurations.


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