A Numerical Study on Effects of Land-Surface Heterogeneity from' Combined Approach' on Atmospheric ProcessPart II: Coupling-Model Simulations

Two land surface schemes, one the standard Biosphere / Atmosphere Transfer Scheme Version ie (BOZ) and the other B1Z based on B0Z and heterogeneously-treated by' combined approach' , were co 'pled to the meso-scale model MM4, respectively. Through the calculations of equations from the companion paper, parameters representing land surface heterogeneity and suitable for the coupling models were found out. Three cases were simulated for heavy rainfalls during 36 hours, and the sensitivity of short-term weather modeling to the land surface heterogeneity was tested. Through the analysis of the simulations of the three heavy rainfalls, it was demonstrated that BIZ, compared with BOZ, could more realistically reflect the features of the land surface heterogeneity, therefore could more realistically reproduce the circulation and precipitation amount in the heavy rainfall processes of the three cases. This shows that even short-term weather is sensitive to the land surface heterogeneity, which is more obvious with time passing, and whose influence is more pronounced in the lower layer and gradually extends to the middle and upper layer. Through the analysis of these simulations with BlZ, it is suggested that the bulk effect of smaller-scale fluxes (i.e., the momentum, water vapor and sensible heat fluxes) near the s ig nificantly-heterogeneous land surface is to change the larger-scale (i.e., meso-scale) circulation, and then to influence the development of the low-level jets and precipitation. And also, the complexity of the land-atmosphere interaction was shown in these simulations.

A Numerical Study on Effects of Land-Surface Heterogeneity from "Combined Approach" on Atmospheric Process Part I: Principle and Method

A method based on Giorgi (1997a, 1997b) and referred to as ’ combined approach’, which is a combi-nation of mosaic approach and analytical-statistical-dynamical approach, is proposed. Compared with those of other approaches, the main advantage of the combined approach is that it not only can represent both interpatch and intrapatch variability, but also cost less computational time when the land surface heterogeneity is considered. Because the independent variable of probability density function (PDF) is ex-tended to the single valued function of basic meteorological characteristic quantities, which is much more universal, the analytical expressions of the characteristic quantities (e.g., drag coefficient, snow coverage, leaf surface aerodynamical resistance) affected by roughness length are derived , when the roughness length(and / or the zero plane displacement) heterogeneity has been mainly taken into account with the approach. On the basis of the rule which the PDF parameters should follow, we choose a function y of the roughness length z 0 as the PDF independent variable, and set different values of the two parameters width ratio αn and height ratio γ of PDF (here a linear, symmetric PDF is applied) for sensitivity experiments, from which some conclusions can be drawn, e.g., relevant characteristic terms show different sensitivities to the heterogeneous characteristic (i.e., roughness length), which suggests that we should consider the heterogeneities of the more sensitive terms in our model instead of the heterogeneities of the rest, and which also implies that when the land surface scheme is coupled into the global or regional atmospheric model, sensitivity tests against the distribution of the heterogeneous characteristic are very necessary; when the parameter αn is close to zero, little heterogeneity is represented, and αn differs with cases, which have an upper limit of about 0.6; in the reasonable range of αn, a peak-like distribution of roughness length can be depicted by a small value of γ, etc.. Key words Representation of land surface heterogeneity - “ Combined approach” - Numerical experiment This work was supported by the National Sciences Foundation of China, Grant No.49875005 and the State Key Project (973) G19990434 (03).

The impact of heterogeneity of land surface roughness length on estimation of turbulent flux in model

Based on preliminary theoretical analysis and numerical experiment, it is found that land surface heterogeneity plays an important role in the models turbulent flux calculation. In nearly neutral atmosphere conditions, variation coefficient of sub-scale roughness length, cell-average roughness, and reference height are main factors affecting the calculation of grid turbulent fluxes. The first factor has a determinant role on calculation deviation. The relative error generated by roughness heterogeneity could be more than 40% in some cases in certain areas （e.g., in vegetation-climate transition belt）. Selecting a specific reference height may improve the calculation of turbulent flux. In stable or unstable atmosphere conditions, with sensible heat flux as an example, analysis shows that the discrepancy is correlated to the sub-grid distributions of mean wind velocity, potential temperature gradient between land surface and reference levels, and atmosphere stability near surface layer caused by the heterogeneity of land surface roughness. The calculation of turbulent flux is the most sensitive to stability in the above three factors. The above analysis shows that it is necessary to make a further consideration for the calculation deviation of the turbulent fluxes brought from land surface heterogeneity in the present numerical models.

Effect of Mesoscale Land Use Change on Characteristics of Convective Boundary Layer:Semi-Idealized Large Eddy Simulations over Northwest China

Although large-scale topography and land use have been properly considered in weather and climate models, the effect of mesoscale and microscale heterogeneous land use on convective boundary layer(CBL) has not been fully understood yet. In this study, the influence of semi-idealized strip-like patches of oases and deserts, which resemble irrigated land use in Northwest China, on the CBL characteristics, is investigated based on the Weather Research and Forecasting(WRF)-large eddy simulation(LES) driven by observed land surface data. The influences of soil water content in oases on aloft CBL flow structure, stability, turbulent kinetic energy(TKE), and vertical fluxes are carefully examined through a group of sensitivity experiments. The results show that secondary circulation(SC)/turbulent organized structures(TOS) is the strongest/weakest when soil water content in oases is close to saturation(e.g.,when the oases are irrigated). With the decrease of soil water content in oases(i.e., after irrigation), SC(TOS) becomes weak(strong) in the lower and middle CBL, the flux induced by SC and TOS becomes small(large), which has a dramatic impact on point measurement of eddy covariance(EC) fluxes. The flux induced by SC and TOS has little influence on EC sensible heat flux, but great influence on EC latent heat flux. Under this circumstance, the area averaged heat flux cannot be represented by point measurement of flux by the EC method, especially just after irrigation in oases. Comparison of imbalance ratio(i.e., contribution of SC and TOS to the total flux) reveals that increased soil moisture in oases leads to a larger imbalance ratio as well as enhanced surface heterogeneity. Moreover,we found that the soil layer configuration at different depths has a negligible impact on the CBL flux properties.