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Title: Evaluation of air–soil temperature relationships simulated by land surfacemodels during winter across the permafrost region

Abstract

A realistic simulation of snow cover and its thermal properties are important for accurate modelling of permafrost. We analyse simulated relationships between air and near-surface (20 cm) soil temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere permafrost region during winter, with a particular focus on snow insulation effects in nine land surface models, and compare them with observations from 268 Russian stations. There are large cross-model differences in the simulated differences between near-surface soil and air temperatures (ΔT; 3 to 14 °C), in the sensitivity of soil-to-air temperature (0.13 to 0.96 °C-1), and in the relationship between Δ$$T$$ and snow depth. The observed relationship between Δ$$T$$ and snow depth can be used as a metric to evaluate the effects of each model's representation of snow insulation, hence guide improvements to the model's conceptual structure and process parameterisations. Models with better performance apply multilayer snow schemes and consider complex snow processes. Some models show poor performance in representing snow insulation due to underestimation of snow depth and/or overestimation of snow conductivity. Generally, models identified as most acceptable with respect to snow insulation simulate reasonable areas of near-surface permafrost (13.19 to 15.77 million km2). However, there is not a simple relationship between the sophistication ofmore » the snow insulation in the acceptable models and the simulated area of Northern Hemisphere near-surface permafrost, because several other factors, such as soil depth used in the models, the treatment of soil organic matter content, hydrology and vegetation cover, also affect the simulated permafrost distribution.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4];  [5]; ORCiD logo [6]; ORCiD logo [7];  [8]; ORCiD logo [9];  [10];  [11]; ORCiD logo [12];  [13];  [14];  [15];  [8]; ORCiD logo [16] more »;  [17];  [18];  [14];  [19]; ORCiD logo [19];  [20];  [21] « less
  1. Beijing Normal Univ. (China)
  2. Beijing Normal Univ. (China); Alfred Wegener Inst. Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Potsdam (Germany)
  3. French National Center for Scientific Research, Grenoble (France); Univ. Grenoble Alpes (France); Univ. of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France)
  4. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
  5. Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
  6. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter (United Kingdom)
  7. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
  8. National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Toulouse (France)
  9. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  10. Univ. of Victoria, BC (Canada)
  11. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama (Japan); Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
  12. Lund Univ. (Sweden); ; Univ. of Copenhagen (Denmark)
  13. National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Toulouse (France); L'Institute for Environment and Sustainablility (IES), Ispra (Italy)
  14. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States)
  15. Univ. of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France)
  16. French National Center for Scientific Research, Grenoble (France)
  17. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama (Japan)
  18. French National Center for Scientific Research, Grenoble (France); Univ. Grenoble Alpes (France)
  19. Lund Univ. (Sweden)
  20. National Inst. of Polar Research, Tachikawa (Japan)
  21. World Data Centre, Obninsk (Russian Federation)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
OSTI Identifier:
1471019
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
The Cryosphere (Online)
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 10; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 1994-0424
Publisher:
European Geosciences Union
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
58 GEOSCIENCES

Citation Formats

Wang, Wenli, Rinke, Annette, Moore, John C., Ji, Duoying, Cui, Xuefeng, Peng, Shushi, Lawrence, David M., McGuire, A. David, Burke, Eleanor J., Chen, Xiaodong, Decharme, Bertrand, Koven, Charles, MacDougall, Andrew, Saito, Kazuyuki, Zhang, Wenxin, Alkama, Ramdane, Bohn, Theodore J., Ciais, Philippe, Delire, Christine, Gouttevin, Isabelle, Hajima, Tomohiro, Krinner, Gerhard, Lettenmaier, Dennis P., Miller, Paul A., Smith, Benjamin, Sueyoshi, Tetsuo, and Sherstiukov, Artem B. Evaluation of air–soil temperature relationships simulated by land surfacemodels during winter across the permafrost region. United States: N. p., 2016. Web. doi:10.5194/tc-10-1721-2016.
Wang, Wenli, Rinke, Annette, Moore, John C., Ji, Duoying, Cui, Xuefeng, Peng, Shushi, Lawrence, David M., McGuire, A. David, Burke, Eleanor J., Chen, Xiaodong, Decharme, Bertrand, Koven, Charles, MacDougall, Andrew, Saito, Kazuyuki, Zhang, Wenxin, Alkama, Ramdane, Bohn, Theodore J., Ciais, Philippe, Delire, Christine, Gouttevin, Isabelle, Hajima, Tomohiro, Krinner, Gerhard, Lettenmaier, Dennis P., Miller, Paul A., Smith, Benjamin, Sueyoshi, Tetsuo, & Sherstiukov, Artem B. Evaluation of air–soil temperature relationships simulated by land surfacemodels during winter across the permafrost region. United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-1721-2016
Wang, Wenli, Rinke, Annette, Moore, John C., Ji, Duoying, Cui, Xuefeng, Peng, Shushi, Lawrence, David M., McGuire, A. David, Burke, Eleanor J., Chen, Xiaodong, Decharme, Bertrand, Koven, Charles, MacDougall, Andrew, Saito, Kazuyuki, Zhang, Wenxin, Alkama, Ramdane, Bohn, Theodore J., Ciais, Philippe, Delire, Christine, Gouttevin, Isabelle, Hajima, Tomohiro, Krinner, Gerhard, Lettenmaier, Dennis P., Miller, Paul A., Smith, Benjamin, Sueyoshi, Tetsuo, and Sherstiukov, Artem B. 2016. "Evaluation of air–soil temperature relationships simulated by land surfacemodels during winter across the permafrost region". United States. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-1721-2016. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1471019.
@article{osti_1471019,
title = {Evaluation of air–soil temperature relationships simulated by land surfacemodels during winter across the permafrost region},
author = {Wang, Wenli and Rinke, Annette and Moore, John C. and Ji, Duoying and Cui, Xuefeng and Peng, Shushi and Lawrence, David M. and McGuire, A. David and Burke, Eleanor J. and Chen, Xiaodong and Decharme, Bertrand and Koven, Charles and MacDougall, Andrew and Saito, Kazuyuki and Zhang, Wenxin and Alkama, Ramdane and Bohn, Theodore J. and Ciais, Philippe and Delire, Christine and Gouttevin, Isabelle and Hajima, Tomohiro and Krinner, Gerhard and Lettenmaier, Dennis P. and Miller, Paul A. and Smith, Benjamin and Sueyoshi, Tetsuo and Sherstiukov, Artem B.},
abstractNote = {A realistic simulation of snow cover and its thermal properties are important for accurate modelling of permafrost. We analyse simulated relationships between air and near-surface (20 cm) soil temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere permafrost region during winter, with a particular focus on snow insulation effects in nine land surface models, and compare them with observations from 268 Russian stations. There are large cross-model differences in the simulated differences between near-surface soil and air temperatures (ΔT; 3 to 14 °C), in the sensitivity of soil-to-air temperature (0.13 to 0.96 °C-1), and in the relationship between Δ$T$ and snow depth. The observed relationship between Δ$T$ and snow depth can be used as a metric to evaluate the effects of each model's representation of snow insulation, hence guide improvements to the model's conceptual structure and process parameterisations. Models with better performance apply multilayer snow schemes and consider complex snow processes. Some models show poor performance in representing snow insulation due to underestimation of snow depth and/or overestimation of snow conductivity. Generally, models identified as most acceptable with respect to snow insulation simulate reasonable areas of near-surface permafrost (13.19 to 15.77 million km2). However, there is not a simple relationship between the sophistication of the snow insulation in the acceptable models and the simulated area of Northern Hemisphere near-surface permafrost, because several other factors, such as soil depth used in the models, the treatment of soil organic matter content, hydrology and vegetation cover, also affect the simulated permafrost distribution.},
doi = {10.5194/tc-10-1721-2016},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1471019}, journal = {The Cryosphere (Online)},
issn = {1994-0424},
number = 4,
volume = 10,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Aug 11 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Thu Aug 11 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}

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Cited by: 34 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Variation of ΔT (°C), the difference between soil temperature at 20 cm depth and air temperature with snow depth (cm) for winter 1980–2000. The dots represent the medians of 5 cm snow depth bins and the upper and lower bars indicate the 25th and 75th percentiles, calculated frommore » all Russian station grid points (n= 268) and 21 individual winters. The numbers in each model panel indicate the RMSE between the observed and modelled relationship. Colours represent different air temperature regimes.« less

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Works referenced in this record:

Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon to Climate Change: Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle
journal, September 2008


A new snow parameterization for the Météo-France climate model: Part I: validation in stand-alone experiments
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The detailed snowpack scheme Crocus and its implementation in SURFEX v7.2
journal, January 2012


The Common Land Model
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A numerical model to simulate snow-cover stratigraphy for operational avalanche forecasting
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Evaluation of Community Climate System Model soil temperatures using observations from Russia
journal, December 2007


Climate and the limits of permafrost: a zonal analysis
journal, January 2002


Land surface insulation response to snow depth variability
journal, January 2010


Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers
book, January 2011


Terrestrial vegetation and water balance—hydrological evaluation of a dynamic global vegetation model
journal, January 2004


Improved modeling of permafrost dynamics in a GCM land-surface scheme: MODELING PERMAFROST DYNAMICS IN ALASKA BY CLM3
journal, April 2007


The effect of snow: How to better model ground surface temperatures
journal, June 2014


A statistical approach to represent small-scale variability of permafrost temperatures due to snow cover
journal, January 2014


Wind-blown flux rates derived from drifts at arctic snow fences
journal, January 2013


Occurrence of blowing snow events at an alpine site over a 10-year period: Observations and modelling
journal, May 2013


Influence of a complex land surface scheme on Arctic climate simulations
journal, January 2006


The Representation of Snow in Land Surface Schemes: Results from PILPS 2(d)
journal, February 2001


The role of terrestrial snow cover in the climate system
journal, February 2007


Remote Sensing, Model-Derived and Ground Measurements of Snow Water Equivalent and Snow Density in Alaska
journal, January 2012


On the formation of high-latitude soil carbon stocks: Effects of cryoturbation and insulation by organic matter in a land surface model
journal, January 2009


SNOWMIP2: An Evaluation of Forest Snow Process Simulations
journal, August 2009


How the insulating properties of snow affect soil carbon distribution in the continental pan-Arctic area: SNOW INSULATION OF SOIL CARBON STOCKS
journal, June 2012


Diagnosing Present and Future Permafrost from Climate Models
journal, August 2013


The thermoinsulation effect of snow cover within a climate model
journal, December 2007


Evaluation of an improved intermediate complexity snow scheme in the ORCHIDEE land surface model: ORCHIDEE SNOW MODEL EVALUATION
journal, June 2013


The role of land surface dynamics in glacial inception: a study with the UVic Earth System Model
journal, December 2003


Past and recent changes in air and permafrost temperatures in eastern Siberia
journal, April 2007


Comparison of weather station snowfall with winter snow accumulation in high arctic basins
journal, September 1983


Effect of snow cover on pan-Arctic permafrost thermal regimes
journal, October 2014


A new fractional snow-covered area parameterization for the Community Land Model and its effect on the surface energy balance: CLM SNOW COVER FRACTION
journal, November 2012


Influence of the Depth Hoar Layer of the Seasonal Snow Cover on the Ground Thermal Regime
journal, July 1996


Assessment of model estimates of land-atmosphere CO 2 exchange across Northern Eurasia
journal, January 2015


Modeling snow accumulation and ablation processes in forested environments: VIC SNOW MODEL
journal, May 2009


The Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES), model description – Part 1: Energy and water fluxes
journal, January 2011


Snow density climatology across the former USSR
journal, January 2014


An Improved Snow Scheme for the ECMWF Land Surface Model: Description and Offline Validation
journal, August 2010


Analysis of Permafrost Thermal Dynamics and Response to Climate Change in the CMIP5 Earth System Models
journal, March 2013


Satellite-based modeling of permafrost temperatures in a tundra lowland landscape
journal, August 2013


Sensitivities and uncertainties of modeled ground temperatures in mountain environments
journal, January 2013


A comparison of 1701 snow models using observations from an alpine site
journal, May 2013


An observation-based assessment of the influences of air temperature and snow depth on soil temperature in Russia
journal, May 2014


Complexity of Snow Schemes in a Climate Model and Its Impact on Surface Energy and Hydrology
journal, April 2012


Description and basic evaluation of Beijing Normal University Earth System Model (BNU-ESM) version 1
journal, January 2014


The contribution of snow condition trends to future ground climate
journal, February 2009


Simulation of Northern Eurasian Local Snow Depth, Mass, and Density Using a Detailed Snowpack Model and Meteorological Reanalyses
journal, February 2013


Modified snow algorithms in the Canadian land surface scheme: Model runs and sensitivity analysis at three boreal forest stands
journal, September 2006


A moving-point approach to model shallow ice sheets: a study case with radially symmetrical ice sheets
journal, January 2016


A regional climate model hindcast for Siberia: analysis of snow water equivalent
journal, January 2013


Intraseasonal variation in the thermoinsulation effect of snow cover on soil temperatures and energy balance: THERMOINSULATION OF SOIL BY SNOW COVER
journal, May 2002


Simulation of permafrost and seasonal thaw depth in the JULES land surface scheme
journal, January 2011


A numerical model to simulate snow-cover stratigraphy for operational avalanche forecasting
journal, January 1992


A new snow parameterization for the Météo-France climate model: Part II: validation in a 3-D GCM experiment
journal, November 1995


Sensitivities and uncertainties of modeled ground temperatures in mountain environments
journal, February 2013


Simulation of permafrost and seasonal thaw depth in the JULES land surface scheme
journal, April 2011


Snow density climatology across the former USSR
journal, July 2013


Sensitivities and uncertainties of modeled ground temperatures in mountain environments
text, January 2013


Amount and timing of permafrost carbon release in response to climate warming
journal, April 2011


The Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES), Model description – Part 1: Energy and water fluxes
journal, January 2011


Works referencing / citing this record:

Uncertainties in coupled regional Arctic climate simulations associated with the used land surface model: Atmosphere and Permafrost in HIRHAM5-CLM4
journal, August 2017


Changes in the Response of the Northern Hemisphere Carbon Uptake to Temperature Over the Last Three Decades
journal, May 2018


Dependence of the evolution of carbon dynamics in the northern permafrost region on the trajectory of climate change
journal, March 2018


Impacts of snow on soil temperature observed across the circumpolar north
journal, April 2018


An ecological barrier between the Himalayas and the Hengduan Mountains maintains the disjunct distribution of Roscoea
journal, October 2019


ORCHIDEE-MICT (v8.4.1), a land surface model for the high latitudes: model description and validation
journal, January 2018


Effects of short-term variability of meteorological variables on soil temperature in permafrost regions
journal, January 2018


Permafrost variability over the Northern Hemisphere based on the MERRA-2 reanalysis
journal, January 2019


Soil moisture and hydrology projections of the permafrost region – a model intercomparison
journal, January 2020


Effects of short-term variability of meteorological variables on soil temperature in permafrost regions
text, January 2018