A regional climate model hindcast for Siberia: analysis of snow water equivalent

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: K. Klehmet, B. Geyer, B. Rockel
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2013
• Subjects: geo; envir; The Cryosphere; Siberia
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-7-1017-2013; http://www.the-cryosphere.net/7/1017/2013/tc-7-1017-2013.pdf; https://doaj.org/article/c671576f225e4c74b09550ed079d935f

This study analyzes the added value of a regional climate model hindcast with respect to snow water equivalent (SWE) for Siberia when compared to SWE estimates from forcing NCEP-R. In addition, we examine the discrepancies of simulated SWE to several recent reanalysis products (NCEP-R2 NCEP-CFSR, ERA-Interim). We apply the regional climate model COSMO-CLM (CCLM) to a 50 km grid spacing using NCEP-R1 as driving force to obtain a 63 yr (1948 to 2010) gridded dataset of historical SWE. Simulated regional climate data is necessary because of the absence of station data in that region. To perform large-scale assessments we use the satellite-derived daily SWE product of ESA DUE GlobSnow from 1987 to 2010. Russian station SWE data is used for cross-checking the findings. In January (mid-winter), the SWE hindcast is in good agreement with GlobSnow, whereas it overestimates SWE during the melting season. CCLM shows a clear added value in providing realistic SWE information compared to the driving reanalysis. The temporal consistency of CCLM is higher than that presented by ERA-Interim and NCEP-R2.