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Title: Land-atmosphere coupling and climate prediction over the U.S. Southern Great Plains

Journal Article · · Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025223· OSTI ID:1474974
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division
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Biases in land-atmosphere coupling in climate models can contribute to climate prediction biases, but land models are rarely evaluated in the context of this coupling. Here, we tested land-atmosphere coupling and explored effects of land surface parameterizations on climate prediction in a single-column version of the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Earth System Model (CESM1.2.2) and an off-line Community Land Model (CLM4.5). The correlation between leaf area index (LAI) and surface evaporative fraction (ratio of latent to total turbulent heat flux) was substantially underpredicted compared to observations in the U.S. Southern Great Plains, while the correlation between soil moisture and evaporative fraction was overpredicted by CLM4.5. To estimate the impacts of these errors on climate prediction, we modified CLM4.5 by prescribing observed LAI, increasing soil resistance to evaporation, increasing minimum stomatal conductance, and increasing leaf reflectance. The modifications improved the predicted soil moisture-evaporative fraction (EF) and LAI-EF correlations in off-line CLM4.5 and reduced the root-mean-square error in summer 2 m air temperature and precipitation in the coupled model. The modifications had the largest effect on prediction during a drought in summer 2006, when a warm bias in daytime 2 m air temperature was reduced from +6°C to a smaller cold bias of -1.3°C, and a corresponding dry bias in precipitation was reduced from -111 mm to -23 mm. The role of vegetation in droughts and heat waves is underpredicted in CESM1.2.2, and improvements in land surface models can improve prediction of climate extremes.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities Division; Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1474974
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1402395
Journal Information:
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 121, Issue 20; Related Information: © 2016. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.; ISSN 2169-897X
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 48 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (5)

Improving Representation of Deforestation Effects on Evapotranspiration in the E3SM Land Model journal August 2019
Surface‐Atmosphere Coupling Scale, the Fate of Water, and Ecophysiological Function in a Brazilian Forest journal August 2019
Detection and Analysis of C-Band Radio Frequency Interference in AMSR2 Data over Land journal May 2019
Coupling between surface ozone and leaf area index in a chemical transport model: strength of feedback and implications for ozone air quality and vegetation health journal January 2018
Coupling between surface ozone and leaf area index in a chemical transport model: Strength of feedback and implications for ozone air quality and vegetation health journal May 2018

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
land-atmosphere
evapotranspiration
soil moisture
vegetation
feedback