Incorporating water table dynamics in climate modeling: 2. Formulation, validation, and soil moisture simulation

[1] In this second part of the two-part series, we discuss the formulation and implementation of groundwater processes into an existing climate model, by linking a groundwater reservoir and a rivers-lakes reservoir with its land surface scheme. We present the parameterization and validation of these processes with river flow and soil moisture observations. We use the new scheme as a tool to investigate the role of the groundwater reservoir in controlling the spatial and temporal structure of large-scale soil moisture fields. We find that where the water table is shallow, the groundwater reservoir is linked to the soil water reservoir through two-way fluxes. At these locations, the role of the groundwater shifts from being primarily a sink to being primarily a source for the soil, as the season progresses from the wet spring to the dry autumn. Through the two-way fluxes, groundwater exerts a certain degree of control on the root zone soil moisture fields; there is an apparent spatial correlation between the distribution of shallow water table and wet soil. Since the water table reflects long-term climatic and topographic forcing and exhibits strong spatial organization, its link to the soil moisture gives the latter a certain degree of spatial organization as well. The slow changing nature of the water table acts to stabilize the temporal variations in soil water, giving the latter stronger seasonal persistence.

[1]  Clemens Simmer,et al.  The Influence of Hydrologic Modeling on the Predicted Local Weather: Two-Way Coupling of a Mesoscale Weather Prediction Model and a Land Surface Hydrologic Model , 2002 .

[2]  D. Lettenmaier,et al.  A Long-Term Hydrologically Based Dataset of Land Surface Fluxes and States for the Conterminous United States* , 2002 .

[3]  Praveen Kumar,et al.  Topographic Influence on the Seasonal and Interannual Variation of Water and Energy Balance of Basins in North America , 2001 .

[4]  Jeffrey B. Basara,et al.  Improved Installation Procedures for Deep-Layer Soil Moisture Measurements , 2000 .

[5]  Y. Gusev,et al.  The simulation of heat and water exchange at the land–atmosphere interface for the boreal grassland by the land‐surface model SWAP , 2002 .

[6]  E. Eltahir,et al.  On the asymmetric response of aquifer water level to floods and droughts in Illinois , 1999 .

[7]  K. Beven,et al.  A physically based, variable contributing area model of basin hydrology , 1979 .

[8]  Thomas C. Winter,et al.  Putting aquifers into atmospheric simulation models: an example from the Mill Creek Watershed, northeastern Kansas , 2002 .

[9]  J. J. Vries,et al.  Seasonal expansion and contraction of stream networks in shallow groundwater systems , 1995 .

[10]  G. Hornberger,et al.  Empirical equations for some soil hydraulic properties , 1978 .

[11]  G. Niu,et al.  The versatile integrator of surface atmospheric processes: Part 2: evaluation of three topography-based runoff schemes , 2003 .

[12]  Arlen W. Harbaugh,et al.  MODFLOW-2000, The U.S. Geological Survey Modular Ground-Water Model - User Guide to Modularization Concepts and the Ground-Water Flow Process , 2000 .

[13]  A. Betts,et al.  NCEP-NCAR and ECMWF Reanalysis Surface Water and Energy Budgets for the Mississippi River Basin , 2000 .

[14]  René Laprise,et al.  Implementation of a large‐scale variable velocity river flow routing algorithm in the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) , 2003 .

[15]  R. Koster,et al.  A catchment-based approach to modeling land surface processes in a general circulation model , 2000 .

[16]  Bart Nijssen,et al.  Global Retrospective Estimation of Soil Moisture Using the Variable Infiltration Capacity Land Surface Model, 1980–93 , 2001 .

[17]  Roger A. Pielke,et al.  A parameterization of heterogeneous land surfaces for atmospheric numerical models and its impact on regional meteorology , 1989 .

[18]  E. Eltahir,et al.  Representation of Water Table Dynamics in a Land Surface Scheme. Part II: Subgrid Variability , 2005 .

[19]  R. D. Black,et al.  An Experimental Investigation of Runoff Production in Permeable Soils , 1970 .

[20]  J. J. Vries.  Dynamics of the interface between streams and groundwater systems in lowland areas, with reference to stream net evolution , 1994 .

[21]  Ying Fan,et al.  Incorporating water table dynamics in climate modeling: 1. Water table observations and equilibrium water table simulations , 2007 .

[22]  Roger A. Pielke,et al.  Coupled Atmosphere–Biophysics–Hydrology Models for Environmental Modeling , 2000 .

[23]  Reed M. Maxwell,et al.  Development of a Coupled Land Surface and Groundwater Model , 2005 .

[24]  Praveen Kumar,et al.  A catchment‐based approach to modeling land surface processes in a general circulation model: 1. Model structure , 2000 .

[25]  R. Reynolds,et al.  The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project , 1996, Renewable Energy.

[26]  J. Hewlett,et al.  Moisture and energy conditions within a sloping soil mass during drainage , 1963 .

[27]  Scott A. Isard,et al.  A Soil Moisture Climatology of Illinois , 1994 .

[28]  A. Robock,et al.  The Global Soil Moisture Data Bank , 2000 .

[29]  J. D. Tarpley,et al.  Evaluation of the North American Land Data Assimilation System over the southern Great Plains during the warm season , 2003 .

[30]  R. D. Black,et al.  Partial Area Contributions to Storm Runoff in a Small New England Watershed , 1970 .

[31]  A. Rinaldo,et al.  Geomorphic controls on regional base flow , 2001 .

[32]  Mark Person,et al.  A Coupled Land-Atmosphere Simulation Program (CLASP): Calibration and validation , 2002 .

[33]  G. Niu,et al.  The Versatile Integrator of Surface and Atmosphere processes: Part 1. Model description , 2003 .

[34]  Elfatih A. B. Eltahir,et al.  Representation of Water Table Dynamics in a Land Surface Scheme. Part I: Model Development , 2005 .

[35]  E. D. Gutentag,et al.  Summary of the High Plains Regional Aquifer-System Analysis in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming , 1988 .

[36]  Zhenghui Xie,et al.  A new parameterization for surface and groundwater interactions and its impact on water budgets with the variable infiltration capacity (VIC) land surface model , 2003 .

[37]  Peter M. Cox,et al.  The Sensitivity of Global Climate Model Simulations to the Representation of Soil Moisture Heterogeneity , 2003 .

[38]  Etienne Leblois,et al.  Simulation of the water budget and the river flows of the Rhone basin , 1999 .

[39]  Vivek K. Arora,et al.  A variable velocity flow routing algorithm for GCMs , 1999 .