GABLS4 intercomparison of snow models at Dome C in Antarctica

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: Le Moigne, Patrick, Bazile, Eric, Cheng, Anning, Dutra, Emanuel, Edwards, John, M, Maurel, William, Sandu, Irina, Traullé, Olivier, Vignon, Etienne, Zadra, Ayrton, Zheng, Weizhong
• Other Authors: Centre national de recherches météorologiques (CNRM), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), NASA Langley Research Center Hampton (LaRC), Instituto Dom Luiz, Universidade de Lisboa = University of Lisbon = Université de Lisbonne (ULISBOA), United Kingdom Met Office Exeter, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Météo-France Direction interrégionale Sud-Ouest (DIRSO), Météo-France, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539) (LMD), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X)-École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Département des Géosciences - ENS Paris, École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), NCEP Environmental Modeling Center (EMC), NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: [SDU.ENVI]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Continental interfaces; environment; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; The Cryosphere
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03693663; https://hal.science/hal-03693663/document; https://hal.science/hal-03693663/file/tc-16-2183-2022.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2183-2022

International audience The Antarctic plateau, characterized by cold and dry weather conditions with very little precipitation, is mostly covered by snow at the surface. This paper describes an intercomparison of snow models, of varying complexity, used for numerical weather prediction or academic research. The results of offline numerical simulations, carried out during 15 d in 2009, on a single site on the Antarctic plateau, show that the simplest models are able to reproduce the surface temperature as well as the most complex models provided that their surface parameters are well chosen. Furthermore, it is shown that the diversity of the surface parameters of the models strongly impacts the numerical simulations, in particular the temporal variability of the surface temperature and the components of the surface energy balance. The models tend to overestimate the surface temperature by 2–5 K at night and underestimate it by 2 K during the day. The observed and simulated turbulent latent heat fluxes are small, of the order of a few W m−2, with a tendency to underestimate, while the sensible heat fluxes are in general too intense at night as well as during the day. The surface temperature errors are consistent with too large a magnitude of sensible heat fluxes during the day and night. Finally, it is shown that the most complex multilayer models are able to reproduce well the propagation of the daily diurnal wave, and that the snow temperature profiles in the snowpack are very close to the measurements carried out on site.