Modeling of land surface evaporation by four schemes and comparison with FIFE observations

We tested four land surface parameterization schemes against long-term (5 months) area-averaged observations over the 15 km × 15 km First International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Field Experiment (FIFE) area. This approach proved to be very beneficial to understanding the performance and limitations of different land surface models. These four surface models, embodying different complexities of the evaporation/hydrology treatment, included the traditional simple bucket model, the simple water balance (SWB) model, the Oregon State University (OSU) model, and the simplified Simple Biosphere (SSiB) model. The bucket model overestimated the evaporation during wet periods, and this resulted in unrealistically large negative sensible heat fluxes. The SWB model, despite its simple evaporation formulation, simulated well the evaporation during wet periods, but it tended to underestimate the evaporation during dry periods. Overall, the OSU model ably simulated the observed seasonal and diurnal variation in evaporation, soil moisture, sensible heat flux, and surface skin temperature. The more complex SSiB model performed similarly to the OSU model. A range of sensitivity experiments showed that some complexity in the canopy resistance scheme is important in reducing both the overestimation of evaporation during wet periods and underestimation during dry periods. Properly parameterizing not only the effect of soil moisture stress but also other canopy resistance factors, such as the vapor pressure deficit stress, is critical for canopy resistance evaluation. An overly simple canopy resistance that includes only soil moisture stress is unable to simulate observed surface evaporation during dry periods. Given a modestly comprehensive time-dependent canopy resistance treatment, a rather simple surface model such as the OSU model can provide good area-averaged surface heat fluxes for mesoscale atmospheric models.

[1]  S. Manabe.  CLIMATE AND THE OCEAN CIRCULATION1 , 1969 .

[2]  P. Jarvis.  The Interpretation of the Variations in Leaf Water Potential and Stomatal Conductance Found in Canopies in the Field , 1976 .

[3]  J. Deardorff.  Efficient prediction of ground surface temperature and moisture, with inclusion of a layer of vegetation , 1978 .

[4]  Y. Mintz,et al.  The sensitivity of numerically simulated climates to land-surface boundary conditions , 1982 .

[5]  P. Rowntree,et al.  Simulation of the atmospheric response to soil moisture anomalies over Europe , 1983 .

[6]  R. Pielke,et al.  Evaluation of Soil Moisture Effects on the Generation and Modification of Mesoscale Circulations , 1984 .

[7]  Richard A. Anthes,et al.  Enhancement of Convective Precipitation by Mesoscale Variations in Vegetative Covering in Semiarid Regions , 1984 .

[8]  M. Ek,et al.  The Influence of Atmospheric Stability on Potential Evaporation , 1984 .

[9]  G. Hornberger,et al.  A Statistical Exploration of the Relationships of Soil Moisture Characteristics to the Physical Properties of Soils , 1984 .

[10]  H. Pan,et al.  A two-layer model of soil hydrology , 1984 .

[11]  A. Dalcher,et al.  A Simple Biosphere Model (SIB) for Use within General Circulation Models , 1986 .

[12]  Piers J. Sellers,et al.  The first International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Field Experiment - FIFE , 1992 .

[13]  Robert J. Gurney,et al.  A RESISTANCE PARAMETER FOR BARE‐SOIL EVAPORATION MODELS , 1986 .

[14]  J. Mahfouf,et al.  The Influence of Soil and Vegetation on the Development of Mesoscale Circulations , 1987 .

[15]  P. Wetzel,et al.  Concerning the Relationship between Evapotranspiration and Soil Moisture , 1987 .

[16]  H. Pan,et al.  Interaction between soil hydrology and boundary-layer development , 1987 .

[17]  S. Planton,et al.  A Simple Parameterization of Land Surface Processes for Meteorological Models , 1989 .

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

[19]  P. S. Eagleson,et al.  Land Surface Hydrology Parameterization for Atmospheric General Circulation models Including Subgrid Scale Spatial Variability , 1989 .

[20]  H. Pan,et al.  A Simple Parameterization Scheme of Evapotranspiration over Land for the NMC Medium-Range Forecast Model , 1990 .

[21]  Michel M. Verstraete,et al.  The representation of continental surface processes in atmospheric models , 1990 .

[22]  J. Noilhan,et al.  Sensitivity study and validation of a land surface parameterization using the HAPEX-MOBILHY data set , 1990 .

[23]  S. Verma,et al.  Components of surface energy balance in a temperate grassland ecosystem , 1990 .

[24]  Christian Blondin,et al.  Parameterization of Land-Surface Processes in Numerical Weather Prediction , 1991 .

[25]  Piers J. Sellers,et al.  A Simplified Biosphere Model for Global Climate Studies , 1991 .

[26]  Shashi B. Verma,et al.  Comparison of surface fluxes and conductances at two contrasting sites within the FIFE area , 1992 .

[27]  Eric F. Wood,et al.  A land-surface hydrology parameterization with subgrid variability for general circulation models , 1992 .

[28]  Piers J. Sellers,et al.  Relations between surface conductance and spectral vegetation indices at intermediate (100 m2 to 15 km2) length scales , 1992 .

[29]  Eric A. Smith,et al.  Estimation of surface heat and moisture fluxes over a prairie grassland: 1. In situ energy budget measurements incorporating a cooled mirror dew point hygrometer , 1992 .

[30]  R. Dickinson,et al.  The Project for Intercomparison of Land Surface Parameterization Schemes (PILPS): Phases 2 and 3 , 1993 .

[31]  Alan K. Betts,et al.  Comparison between the land surface response of the ECMWF model and the FIFE‐1987 data , 1993 .

[32]  J. Garratt.  Sensitivity of Climate Simulations to Land-Surface and Atmospheric Boundary-Layer Treatments-A Review , 1993 .

[33]  Fei Chen,et al.  The impact of land-surface wetness heterogeneity on mesoscale heat fluxes , 1994 .

[34]  Z. Janjic.  The Step-Mountain Eta Coordinate Model: Further Developments of the Convection, Viscous Sublayer, and Turbulence Closure Schemes , 1994 .

[35]  F. Ács.  A Coupled Soil-Vegetation Scheme: Description, Parameters, Validation, and, Sensitivity Studies , 1994 .

[36]  T. Black.  The new NMC mesoscale Eta Model: description and forecast examples , 1994 .

[37]  Fei Chen,et al.  Impact of Land-Surface Moisture Variability on Local Shallow Convective Cumulus and Precipitation in Large-Scale Models , 1994 .

[38]  Ann Henderson-Sellers,et al.  The Project for Intercomparison of Land Surface Parameterization Schemes (PILPS): Phases 2 and 3 , 1995 .

[39]  Dan Tarpley,et al.  The Enhanced NOAA Global Land Dataset from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer , 1995 .

[40]  Pedro Viterbo,et al.  An Improved Land Surface Parameterization Scheme in the ECMWF Model and Its Validation. , 1995 .

[41]  Aijun Xiu,et al.  Development and Testing of a Surface Flux and Planetary Boundary Layer Model for Application in Mesoscale Models , 1995 .

[42]  Y. Xue,et al.  Use of midlatitude soil moisture and meteorological observations to validate soil moisture simulations with biosphere and bucket models , 1995 .

[43]  Jinwon Kim,et al.  A simulation of the surface energy budget and soil water content over the Hydrologic Atmospheric Pilot Experiments‐Modélisation du Bilan Hydrique forest site , 1995 .

[44]  P. Dirmeyer,et al.  Sensitivity of Simulated Surface Fluxes to Changes in Land Surface Parameterizations-A Study Using ABRACOS Data , 1996 .

[45]  M. Ek,et al.  Impact of soil water property parameterization on atmospheric boundary layer simulation , 1996 .

[46]  K. Mitchell,et al.  Simple water balance model for estimating runoff at different spatial and temporal scales , 1996 .