Modelling evaporation from wetland lichen and moss tundra in Churchill, Manitoba

• Main Author: Liu, Xiang
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 2009
• Subjects: Churchill; Subarctic; Tundra
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/9262/; https://research.library.mun.ca/9262/1/Liu_Xiang.pdf

Today northern subarctic terrestrial environments are receiving increased attention due to their hydrologic effects not only on subarctic terrain but on the whole global water cycle. Evaporation is a pronounced factor consisting of a portion of the energy and water balances. Predicting evaporation is becoming one of the most important fields of research in hydrological and climatological analysis. This thesis describes the simulation of evaporation from a wetland lichen and moss tundra in Churchill, Manitoba. -- The models used are the Canadian Land Surface Scheme-CLASS and the Penman-Monteith model. In both models, the canopy resistance needs to be corrected to account for non-vascular vegetation, whose evapotranspiration depends only on canopy moisture. The plotted results show that both the modified models perform comparably in the simulation of the evaporation. -- The data for the simulations are from two weather stations in Churchill: Fen and Rail Spur. All the components of the energy balance are modelled at Fen, and the results from CLASS show good fits to the measurements. Longwave radiation is successfully modelled at Rail Spur by associating the degree of cloud cover with weather conditions.