Influence of atmospheric forcing parameters on land surface simulation

Abstract:

The quality of atmospheric forcing plays important role on land surface simulation using decoupled land surface modeling system. In the present study, the influence of the various atmospheric forcing parameters on land surface simulation is assessed through sensitivity experiments. Numerical experiments are conducted towards preparation of land surface analysis for the period Jan-2011 - Dec-2013 using offline 2D-Noah land surface model (LSM) based land data assimilation system (LDAS) over Indian region (5 - 39N, 60 - 100E) hereafter referred as LDASI. The surface temperature, specific humidity, horizontal winds and pressure as atmospheric forcing parameters are derived from Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA). The downward (solar and thermal) radiation and precipitation is obtained from European Centre for Medium Range Forecast (ECMWF) and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) respectively. The sensitivity experiments are conducted by introducing perturbation in one atmospheric forcing parameter at a time keeping the other parameters unchanged. Influence of temperature, specific humidity, downward (shortwave and long wave) radiation, rain-rate and wind speed is investigated by conducted 13 numerical experiments. It is observed that the land surface analysis from LDASI is most sensitive to the downward longwave radiation and least sensitive to wind speed. The analysis is also substantially influenced by the surface air temperature. The annual mean soil moisture at 5 cm is decreased by 12-15% if the downward long-wave radiation is increased by 20% and it is increased by 15% if the downward long-wave radiation is decreased by 20%. The influence is even more in the Himalayan region but the increase in long-wave radiation leads to increase in soil moisture and similar influence on decrease because downward long-wave radiation leads glacier melting. The annual mean soil temperature in the analysis is increased by 2.2 K if surface air temperature is increased by 1%. The soil temperature is also increased by about 1.8 K in over Indian landmass and 2.8 K over Pakistan if long wave radiation is increased by 20%. The land surface heterogeneity in both soil temperature and moisture is dominated by annual rainfall distribution over the region.