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Title: Modeling land surface processes over a mountainous rainforest in Costa Rica using CLM4.5 and CLM5

Journal Article · · Geoscientific Model Development (Online)
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Dept. of Civil Engineering; Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States).
  2. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Dept. of Civil Engineering
  3. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Dept. of Ecosystem Science and Management; Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States). School of Life Sciences
  4. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Dept. of Ecosystem Science and Management

This study compares the performance of the Community Land Models (CLM4.5 and CLM5) against tower and ground measurements from a tropical montane rainforest in Costa Rica. The study site receives over 4000 mm of mean annual precipitation and has high daily levels of relative humidity. The measurement tower is equipped with eddy-covariance and vertical profile systems able to measure various micrometeorological variables, particularly in wet and complex terrain. In this work, results from point-scale simulations for both CLM4.5 and its updated version (CLM5) are compared to observed canopy flux and micrometeorological data. Both models failed to capture the effects of frequent rainfall events and mountainous topography on the variables of interest (temperatures, leaf wetness, and fluxes). Overall, CLM5 alleviates some errors in CLM4.5, but CLM5 still cannot precisely simulate a number of canopy processes for this forest. Soil, air, and canopy temperatures, as well as leaf wetness, remain too sensitive to incoming solar radiation rates despite updates to the model. As a result, daytime vapor flux and carbon flux are overestimated, and modeled temperature differences between day and night are higher than those observed. Slope effects appear in the measured average diurnal variations of surface albedo and carbon flux, but CLM5 cannot simulate these features. This study suggests that both CLMs still require further improvements concerning energy partitioning processes, such as leaf wetness process, photosynthesis model, and aerodynamic resistance model for wet and mountainous regions.

Research Organization:
Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Texas A & M Engineering Experiment Station
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0010654
OSTI ID:
1851413
Journal Information:
Geoscientific Model Development (Online), Journal Name: Geoscientific Model Development (Online) Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 13; ISSN 1991-9603
Publisher:
Copernicus Publications, EGUCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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