Snow cover prediction in the Italian central Apennines using weather forecast and land surface numerical models
Italy is a territory characterized by complex topography with the Apennines mountain range crossing the entire peninsula and its highest peaks in central Italy. Using the latter as our area of interest and the snow seasons 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21, the goal of this study is to investigate the ab...
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2023
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:7e1c769e45ca4e7da18b779e0d1f2f73 2023-05-15T18:32:27+02:00 Snow cover prediction in the Italian central Apennines using weather forecast and land surface numerical models E. Raparelli P. Tuccella V. Colaiuda F. S. Marzano 2023-02-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-519-2023 https://doaj.org/article/7e1c769e45ca4e7da18b779e0d1f2f73 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/519/2023/tc-17-519-2023.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-17-519-2023 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/7e1c769e45ca4e7da18b779e0d1f2f73 The Cryosphere, Vol 17, Pp 519-538 (2023) Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 article 2023 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-519-2023 2023-02-12T01:31:11Z Italy is a territory characterized by complex topography with the Apennines mountain range crossing the entire peninsula and its highest peaks in central Italy. Using the latter as our area of interest and the snow seasons 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21, the goal of this study is to investigate the ability of a simple single-layer and a more sophisticated multi-layer snow cover numerical model to reproduce the observed snow height, snow water equivalent and snow extent in the central Apennines, using for both models the same forecast weather data as meteorological forcing. We here consider two well-known ground surface and soil models: (i) Noah LSM, an Eulerian model which simulates the snowpack as a bulk single layer, and (ii) Alpine3D, a multi-layer Lagrangian model which simulates the snowpack stratification. We adopt the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to produce the meteorological data to drive both Noah LSM and Alpine3D at a regional scale with a spatial resolution of 3 km. While Noah LSM is already online-coupled with the WRF model, we develop here a dedicated offline coupling between WRF and Alpine3D. We validate the WRF simulations of surface meteorological variables in central Italy using a dense network of automatic weather stations, obtaining correlation coefficients higher than 0.68, except for wind speed, which suffered from the model underestimation of the real elevation. The performances of both WRF–Noah and WRF–Alpine3D are evaluated by comparing simulated and measured snow height, snow height variation and snow water equivalent, provided by a quality-controlled network of automatic and manual snow stations located in the central Apennines. We find that WRF–Alpine3D can predict better than WRF–Noah the snow height and the snow water equivalent, showing a correlation coefficient with the observations of 0.9 for the former and 0.7 for the latter. Both models show similar performances in reproducing the observed daily snow height variation; nevertheless WRF–Noah is slightly better at ... Article in Journal/Newspaper The Cryosphere Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles The Cryosphere 17 2 519 538 |
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Open Polar |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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English |
topic |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
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Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 E. Raparelli P. Tuccella V. Colaiuda F. S. Marzano Snow cover prediction in the Italian central Apennines using weather forecast and land surface numerical models |
topic_facet |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
description |
Italy is a territory characterized by complex topography with the Apennines mountain range crossing the entire peninsula and its highest peaks in central Italy. Using the latter as our area of interest and the snow seasons 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21, the goal of this study is to investigate the ability of a simple single-layer and a more sophisticated multi-layer snow cover numerical model to reproduce the observed snow height, snow water equivalent and snow extent in the central Apennines, using for both models the same forecast weather data as meteorological forcing. We here consider two well-known ground surface and soil models: (i) Noah LSM, an Eulerian model which simulates the snowpack as a bulk single layer, and (ii) Alpine3D, a multi-layer Lagrangian model which simulates the snowpack stratification. We adopt the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to produce the meteorological data to drive both Noah LSM and Alpine3D at a regional scale with a spatial resolution of 3 km. While Noah LSM is already online-coupled with the WRF model, we develop here a dedicated offline coupling between WRF and Alpine3D. We validate the WRF simulations of surface meteorological variables in central Italy using a dense network of automatic weather stations, obtaining correlation coefficients higher than 0.68, except for wind speed, which suffered from the model underestimation of the real elevation. The performances of both WRF–Noah and WRF–Alpine3D are evaluated by comparing simulated and measured snow height, snow height variation and snow water equivalent, provided by a quality-controlled network of automatic and manual snow stations located in the central Apennines. We find that WRF–Alpine3D can predict better than WRF–Noah the snow height and the snow water equivalent, showing a correlation coefficient with the observations of 0.9 for the former and 0.7 for the latter. Both models show similar performances in reproducing the observed daily snow height variation; nevertheless WRF–Noah is slightly better at ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
E. Raparelli P. Tuccella V. Colaiuda F. S. Marzano |
author_facet |
E. Raparelli P. Tuccella V. Colaiuda F. S. Marzano |
author_sort |
E. Raparelli |
title |
Snow cover prediction in the Italian central Apennines using weather forecast and land surface numerical models |
title_short |
Snow cover prediction in the Italian central Apennines using weather forecast and land surface numerical models |
title_full |
Snow cover prediction in the Italian central Apennines using weather forecast and land surface numerical models |
title_fullStr |
Snow cover prediction in the Italian central Apennines using weather forecast and land surface numerical models |
title_full_unstemmed |
Snow cover prediction in the Italian central Apennines using weather forecast and land surface numerical models |
title_sort |
snow cover prediction in the italian central apennines using weather forecast and land surface numerical models |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-519-2023 https://doaj.org/article/7e1c769e45ca4e7da18b779e0d1f2f73 |
genre |
The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 17, Pp 519-538 (2023) |
op_relation |
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/519/2023/tc-17-519-2023.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-17-519-2023 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/7e1c769e45ca4e7da18b779e0d1f2f73 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-519-2023 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
519 |
op_container_end_page |
538 |
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1766216573039673344 |