Development and implementation of a Variable Infiltration Capacity model of surface hydrology into the General Circulation Model
- Washington Univ., Seattle, WA (United States)
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Civil Engineering and Operations Research
A Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model is described for the representation of land surface hydrology in General Circulation Models (GCMs). The VIC model computes runoff as a function of the distribution of soil moisture capacity within a GCM grid cell. The major distinguishing feature of the VIC model relative to the bucket model currently used to represent the land surface in many GCMs is that it parameterizes the nonlinearity of the fraction of precipitation that infiltrates over a large area (hence the production of direct runoff) as a function of spatial average soil moisture storage, and that it models subsurface runoff between storms via a simple recession mechanism. The VIC model was incorporated into the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) GCM at R15 resolution (roughly 4.5 degrees latitude by 7.5 degrees longitude). Ten-year simulations of global climate were produced using the GFDL GCM with both VIC land surface hydrology, and, for comparison purposes, the standard bucket representation. Comparison of the ten year runs using the VIC model with those using bucket hydrology showed that for the VIC run, global average runoff increased, soil moisture decreased, evaporation decreased, land surface temperature increased, and precipitation decreased. As expected, changes in precipitation occurred primarily over the continents, especially in the northern hemisphere. Changes in the surface water balance for Africa, Australia, and South America were much less than for North American and Eurasia. Both VIC and bucket simulations of surface air temperature and precipitation were compared with gridded monthly average observation fields. These comparisons indicated that the VIC hydrology reproduced winter temperatures better, and summer temperatures worse, than the bucket model. The VIC hydrology better represented global precipitation, primarily as a result of partially reducing the upward bias in precipitation associated with the GFDL R15 bucket runs.
- Research Organization:
- Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States); Washington Univ., Seattle, WA (United States); Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Civil Engineering and Operations Research
- Sponsoring Organization:
- EPRI; Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 6779137
- Report Number(s):
- EPRI-TR-102243
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
58 GEOSCIENCES
ATMOSPHERIC PRECIPITATIONS
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
HYDROLOGY
MOISTURE
RUNOFF
CLIMATE MODELS
RISK ASSESSMENT
SOILS
WATER QUALITY
WATER RESOURCES
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
MASS TRANSFER
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
RESOURCES
540110*
580000 - Geosciences