Evaluation of E3SM land model snow simulations over the western United States
Seasonal snow has crucial impacts on climate, ecosystems, and humans, but it is vulnerable to global warming. The land component (ELM) of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) mechanistically simulates snow processes from accumulation, canopy interception, compaction, and snow aging to melt....
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:ad957b4b972142fd8a0be26855eb3234 2023-05-15T18:32:29+02:00 Evaluation of E3SM land model snow simulations over the western United States D. Hao G. Bisht K. Rittger T. Stillinger E. Bair Y. Gu L. R. Leung 2023-02-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-673-2023 https://doaj.org/article/ad957b4b972142fd8a0be26855eb3234 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/673/2023/tc-17-673-2023.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-17-673-2023 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/ad957b4b972142fd8a0be26855eb3234 The Cryosphere, Vol 17, Pp 673-697 (2023) Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 article 2023 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-673-2023 2023-02-12T01:27:56Z Seasonal snow has crucial impacts on climate, ecosystems, and humans, but it is vulnerable to global warming. The land component (ELM) of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) mechanistically simulates snow processes from accumulation, canopy interception, compaction, and snow aging to melt. Although high-quality field measurements, remote sensing snow products, and data assimilation products with high spatio-temporal resolution are available, there has been no systematic evaluation of the snow properties and phenology in ELM. This study comprehensively evaluates ELM snow simulations over the western United States at 0.125 ∘ resolution during 2001–2019 using the Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) in situ networks, MODIS remote sensing products (i.e., MCD43 surface albedo product), the spatially and temporally complete (STC) snow-covered area and grain size (MODSCAG) and MODIS dust and radiative forcing in snow (MODDRFS) products (STC-MODSCAG/STC-MODDRFS), and the snow property inversion from remote sensing (SPIReS) product and two data assimilation products of snow water equivalent and snow depth – i.e., University of Arizona (UA) and SNOw Data Assimilation System (SNODAS). Overall the ELM simulations are consistent with the benchmarking datasets and reproduce the spatio-temporal patterns, interannual variability, and elevation gradients for different snow properties including snow cover fraction ( f sno ), surface albedo ( α sur ) over snow cover regions, snow water equivalent (SWE), and snow depth ( D sno ). However, there are large biases of f sno with dense forest cover and α sur in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada in winter, compared to the MODIS products. There are large discrepancies of snow albedo, snow grain size, and light-absorbing particle-induced snow albedo reduction between ELM and the MODIS products, attributed to uncertainties in the aerosol forcing data, snow aging processes in ELM, and remote sensing retrievals. Against UA and SNODAS, ELM has a mean bias of −20.7 mm ( −35.9 %) and −20.4 mm ( ... Article in Journal/Newspaper The Cryosphere Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles The Cryosphere 17 2 673 697 |
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Open Polar |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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language |
English |
topic |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
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Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 D. Hao G. Bisht K. Rittger T. Stillinger E. Bair Y. Gu L. R. Leung Evaluation of E3SM land model snow simulations over the western United States |
topic_facet |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
description |
Seasonal snow has crucial impacts on climate, ecosystems, and humans, but it is vulnerable to global warming. The land component (ELM) of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) mechanistically simulates snow processes from accumulation, canopy interception, compaction, and snow aging to melt. Although high-quality field measurements, remote sensing snow products, and data assimilation products with high spatio-temporal resolution are available, there has been no systematic evaluation of the snow properties and phenology in ELM. This study comprehensively evaluates ELM snow simulations over the western United States at 0.125 ∘ resolution during 2001–2019 using the Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) in situ networks, MODIS remote sensing products (i.e., MCD43 surface albedo product), the spatially and temporally complete (STC) snow-covered area and grain size (MODSCAG) and MODIS dust and radiative forcing in snow (MODDRFS) products (STC-MODSCAG/STC-MODDRFS), and the snow property inversion from remote sensing (SPIReS) product and two data assimilation products of snow water equivalent and snow depth – i.e., University of Arizona (UA) and SNOw Data Assimilation System (SNODAS). Overall the ELM simulations are consistent with the benchmarking datasets and reproduce the spatio-temporal patterns, interannual variability, and elevation gradients for different snow properties including snow cover fraction ( f sno ), surface albedo ( α sur ) over snow cover regions, snow water equivalent (SWE), and snow depth ( D sno ). However, there are large biases of f sno with dense forest cover and α sur in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada in winter, compared to the MODIS products. There are large discrepancies of snow albedo, snow grain size, and light-absorbing particle-induced snow albedo reduction between ELM and the MODIS products, attributed to uncertainties in the aerosol forcing data, snow aging processes in ELM, and remote sensing retrievals. Against UA and SNODAS, ELM has a mean bias of −20.7 mm ( −35.9 %) and −20.4 mm ( ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
D. Hao G. Bisht K. Rittger T. Stillinger E. Bair Y. Gu L. R. Leung |
author_facet |
D. Hao G. Bisht K. Rittger T. Stillinger E. Bair Y. Gu L. R. Leung |
author_sort |
D. Hao |
title |
Evaluation of E3SM land model snow simulations over the western United States |
title_short |
Evaluation of E3SM land model snow simulations over the western United States |
title_full |
Evaluation of E3SM land model snow simulations over the western United States |
title_fullStr |
Evaluation of E3SM land model snow simulations over the western United States |
title_full_unstemmed |
Evaluation of E3SM land model snow simulations over the western United States |
title_sort |
evaluation of e3sm land model snow simulations over the western united states |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-673-2023 https://doaj.org/article/ad957b4b972142fd8a0be26855eb3234 |
genre |
The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 17, Pp 673-697 (2023) |
op_relation |
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/17/673/2023/tc-17-673-2023.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-17-673-2023 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/ad957b4b972142fd8a0be26855eb3234 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-673-2023 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
673 |
op_container_end_page |
697 |
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1766216593806721024 |