Evaluation of air-soil temperature relationships simulated by land surface models during winter across the permafrost region

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: Wang, W., Rinke, A., Moore, J.C., Ji, D., Cui, X., Peng, S., Lawrence, D.M., Mcguire, A.D., Burke, E.J., Chen, X., Decharme, B., Koven, C., Macdougall, C., Saito, K., Zhang, W., Alkama, R., Bohn, T.J., Ciais, P., Delire, C., Gouttevin, I., Hajima, T., Krinner, G., Lettenmaier, D.P., Miller, P.A., Smith, B., Sueyoshi, T., Sherstiukov, A.B.
• Other Authors: Beijing Normal University (BNU), Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de l'environnement (LGGE), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (OSUG ), Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes 2016-2019 (UGA 2016-2019 )-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes 2016-2019 (UGA 2016-2019 ), National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder (NCAR), University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change (MOHC), United Kingdom Met Office Exeter, University of Washington Seattle, 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 Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-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 Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-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), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Berkeley (LBNL), School of Earth Sciences Melbourne, Faculty of Science Melbourne, University of Melbourne-University of Melbourne, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Lund University Lund, Arizona State University Tempe (ASU), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), ICOS-ATC (ICOS-ATC), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Hydrologie-Hydraulique (UR HHLY), Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA), National Institute of Polar Research Tokyo (NiPR), World Data Centre, All-Russian Research Institute of Hydrometeorological Information
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: snow; modelling; temperature; MODELISATION; NEIGE; [SDE.IE]Environmental Sciences/Environmental Engineering; [SDU.STU.GL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Glaciology; permafrost; The Cryosphere
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01587094; https://hal.science/hal-01587094/document; https://hal.science/hal-01587094/file/ly2016-pub00052555.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-1721-2016

[Departement_IRSTEA]Eaux [TR1_IRSTEA]ARCEAU International audience A realistic simulation of snow cover and its thermal properties are important for accurate modelling of permafrost. We analyse simulated relationships between air and near-surface (20 cm) soil temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere permafrost region during winter, with a particular focus on snow insulation effects in nine land surface models, and compare them with observations from 268 Russian stations. There are large cross-model differences in the simulated differences between near-surface soil and air temperatures (ΔT; 3 to 14 °C), in the sensitivity of soil-to-air temperature (0.13 to 0.96 °C °C−1), and in the relationship between ΔT and snow depth. The observed relationship between ΔT and snow depth can be used as a metric to evaluate the effects of each model's representation of snow insulation, hence guide improvements to the model's conceptual structure and process parameterisations. Models with better performance apply multilayer snow schemes and consider complex snow processes. Some models show poor performance in representing snow insulation due to underestimation of snow depth and/or overestimation of snow conductivity. Generally, models identified as most acceptable with respect to snow insulation simulate reasonable areas of near-surface permafrost (13.19 to 15.77 million km2). However, there is not a simple relationship between the sophistication of the snow insulation in the acceptable models and the simulated area of Northern Hemisphere near-surface permafrost, because several other factors, such as soil depth used in the models, the treatment of soil organic matter content, hydrology and vegetation cover, also affect the simulated permafrost distribution.