北极夏季冰面上近地层特征及热量收支问题

应用1999年8月19～24日我国第1次北极考察资料对北极夏季近地层气象要素梯度特征和冰面热量收支问题进行了讨论.北极夏季近地层相对于冰面的相对湿度很大,经常接近于饱和状态,冰温具有明显的日变化,夜间冰面附近冰温梯度较大,白天很小.在冰温垂直分布中20cm冰层温度有时可出现极大值.冰面热量收支计算表明,夜间冰面辐射冷却损失热量主要由冰层向冰面热量输送来补偿.白天冰层的热量主要来源于穿透短波辐射,冰面和以下冰层间的热量交换很低.白天冰面冰雪融化热量是不可忽视的.

How Does the Partitioning of Evapotranspiration and Runoff between Different Processes Affect the Variability and Predictability of Soil Moisture and Precipitation?

Water stored as part of the land surface is lost to evapotranspiration and runoff on different time scales, and the partitioning between these time scales is important for modeling soil water in a climate model. Different time scales are imposed on evapotranspiration primarily because it is derived from different reservoirs with different storage capacities, from the very rapid evaporation of canopy stores to the slow removal by transpiration of rooting zone soil moisture. Runoff likewise ranges in time scale from rapid surface terms to the slower base-flow. The longest time scale losses of water determine the slow variation of soil moisture and hence the longer time scale effects of soil moisture on precipitation. This paper shows with a simple analysis how shifting the partitioning of evapotranspiration between the different reservoirs affects the variability of soil moisture and precipitation. In particular, it is concluded that a shift to shorter time scale reservoirs shifts the variance of precipitation from that which is potentially predictable to unpredictable.

Intermediately Complex Models for the Hydrological Interactions in the Atmosphere-Vegetation-Soil System

This paper investigates the hydrological interactions in the atmosphere-evegetation-soil system by using the bucket model and several new simplified intermediately complex models. The results of mathematical analysis and numerical simulations show that these models, despite their simplicity, can very clearly reveal the essential features of the rather complex hydrological system of atmosphere-ecosystem-soil. For given atmospheric variables, these models clearly demonstrate multiple timescales, the ＂red shift＂ of response spectra, multi-equilibria and limit cycles, bifurcation, abrupt change, self-organization, recovery, ＂desertification＂, and chaos. Most of these agree with observations. Especially, the weakening of ＂shading effect＂ of living canopy and the wilted biomass might be a major mechanism leading to the desertification in a relatively short period due to overgrazing, and the desertification in a relatively long period or in climate of change might be due to both Charney＇s mechanism and the shading effect. These ideas could be validated with further numerical simulations. In the paper, some methods for improving the estimation of timescales in the soil water evolution responding to the forcing are also proposed.

Improving the Treatment of the Vertical Snow Burial Fraction over Short Vegetation in the NCAR CLM3

One deficiency of the NCAR Community Land Model （CLM3） is the disappearance of the simulated snow even in the middle of winter over a boreal grassland site due to unrealistically modeled high downward turbulent fluxes. This is caused by the inappropriate treatment of the vertical snow burial fraction for short vegetation. A new snow burial fraction formulation for short vegetation is then proposed and validated using in situ observations. This modification in the CLM3 largely removes the unrealistic surface turbulent fluxes, leading to a more reasonable snowmelt process, and improves the snow water equivalent （SWE） simulation. Moreover, global offline simulations show that the proposed formulation decreases sensible and latent heat fluxes as well as the ground temperature during the snowmelt season over short vegetation dominant regions. Correspondingly, the SWE is enhanced, leading to the increase in snowmelt-induced runoff during the same period. Furthermore, sensitivity tests indicate that these improvements are insensitive to the exact functional form or parameter values in the proposed formulation.

Impacts of internal climate variability on meteorological drought changes in China

Drought is one of the extreme events that can be caused by internal climate variability （ICV） and external forcing （EF）. Here, the authors investigate the relative contributions of ICY and EF to meteorological drought changes in China using 40 members from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble （CESE_LE） project for historical simulations （in response to greenhouse gases and other EF） and future simulations under the RCP8.5 scenario. The authors use the Standardized Precipitation Index （SPI） to represent meteorological drought, and then define and analyze four drought parameters （frequency, severity, duration, and maximum duration） over eight regions of China. For historical periods, the ICV plays a dominant role in drought variation, while with global warming under the RCP8.5 scenario the EF becomes the prominent factor for drought characteristics. With the global warming signal, the effect of ICV varies with the drought parameters. This study suggests that the ICV should be taken into account when climate model simulations are used to investigate drought--in particular, for historical periods.