Numerical Study of Initial Soil Moisture Impacts on Regional Surface Climate
Xueli Shi
.
DOI: 10.4236/acs.2011.14019   PDF    HTML     5,677 Downloads   9,417 Views   Citations

Abstract

In this paper, the impacts of initial soil moisture (SM) over the Huaihe River Basin of China on the summertime climate have been investigated with a regional climate model. Three fourth-month-long simulations are made for two summers, the abnormal flooding in 2003 and normal climate in 2004. Besides control simulations (noted as CTL), sensitivity experiments have been conducted by assigning the initial soil moisture equals to 50% and 150% of the simulated soil moisture while keeping the others unchanged, which are noted as SM50 and SM150, respectively.The results show that effects of initial SM anomalies at late spring can last for the whole summer, and the increase of initial soil moisture (SM150) has more significant effects than the decreased one (SM50). The differences between sensitivity experiments and CTL mainly appear at surface and near-surface atmosphere. When increasing the initial SM, the latent heat flux and surface soil moisture are increased, correspondingly the sensible heat flux, temperature and radiation are all decreased. The changes of rainfall are not distinct between SM50 and SM150, which might be related to the processes within atmosphere, especially the humidity pattern.

Share and Cite:

X. Shi, "Numerical Study of Initial Soil Moisture Impacts on Regional Surface Climate," Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, Vol. 1 No. 4, 2011, pp. 172-185. doi: 10.4236/acs.2011.14019.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] R. A. Pielke, G. E. Liston, J. E. Eastman and L. X. Lu, “Seasonal Weather Prediction as an Initial Value Problem,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 104, No. D16, 1999, pp. 19463-19479. doi:10.1029/1999JD900231
[2] W. R. Wu, M. A. Geller and R. E. Dickinson, “The Response of Soil Moisture to Long-Term Variability of Precipitation,” Journal of Hydrometeorology, Vol. 3, No. 5, 2002, pp. 604-613. doi:10.1175/1525-7541(2002)003<0604:TROSMT>2.0.CO;2
[3] T. C. Yeh, R. T. Wetherald and S. Manabe, “The Effect of Soil Moisture on the Short-Term Climate and Hydrology Change―A Numerical Experiment,” Monthly Weather Review, Vol. 112, No. 3, 1984, pp. 474-490. doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1984)112<0474:TEOSMO>2.0.CO;2
[4] Y. Q. Liu, “Spatial Patterns of Soil Moisture Connected to Monthly-Seasonal Precipitation Variability in a Monsoon Region,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 108, No. D22, 2003, p. 8856. doi:10.1029/2002JD003124
[5] E. A. B. Eltahir, “A Soil Moisture-Rainfall Feedback Mechanism, 1: Theory and Observations,” Water Resource Research, Vol. 34, No. 4, 1998, pp. 765-776. doi:10.1029/97WR03499
[6] R. D. Koster, P. A. Dirmeyer, Z. C. Guo and Coauthors, “Regions of Strong Coupling between Soil Moisture and Precipitation,” Science, Vol. 305, No. 5687, 2004, pp. 1138-1140. doi:10.1126/science.1100217
[7] J. J. Xu, W. J. Shuttleworth and X. Gao, “Soil Moisture-Precipitation Feedback on the North American Monsoon System in the MM5-OSU Model,” Quarterly Journal of Royal Meteorology Society, Vol. 130, No. 603, 2004, pp. 2873-2890. doi:10.1256/qj.03.192
[8] H. Douville, F. Chauvin and H. Broqua, “Influence of Soil Moisture on the Asian and African Monsoons Part I: Mean Monsoon and Daily Precipitation,” Journal of Climate, Vol. 14, No. 11, 2001, pp. 2381-2403. doi:10.1175/1520-0442(2001)014<2381:IOSMOT>2.0.CO;2
[9] Z. G. Ma, H. L. Wei and C. B. Fu, “Relationship between Regional Soil Moisture Variation and Climatic Variability over East China,” ACTA Meteorological Sinica, Vol. 58, 2000, pp. 278-287. (in Chinese)
[10] C. H. Sun, W. J. Li and Z. Q. Zhang, et al., “Impact of Huaihe River Basin Soil Temperature and Humidity Abnormality in Pre-Winter and Sprint Time on the Anomalous Summer Rainfall and Its Application,” ACTA Meteorological Sinica, Vol. 63, 2005, pp. 115-122. (in Chinese)
[11] Z. H. Lin, X. S. Yang and Y. F. Guo, “Sensitivity of Land Surface Model to the Initial Condition of Soil Moisture,” Climate and Environment Research, Vol. 6, 2001, pp. 240-248. (in Chinese)
[12] Y. H. Ding, X. L. Shi, Y. M. Liu, Y. Liu, Q. Q. Li, Y. F. Qian, M. Q. Miao, G. Q. Zhao and K. Gao, “Multi-Year Simulations and Experimental Seasonal Prediction for Rainy Seasons in China by Using a Nested Regional Climate Model (RegCM_NCC). Part I: Sensitivity Study,” Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2006, pp. 323-341. doi:10.1007/s00376-006-0323-8
[13] K. C. Chow, J. C. L. Chan, X. L. Shi and Y. H. Ding, “Time-Lagged Effects of Spring Tibetan Plateau Soil Moisture on the Monsoon over China in Early Summer,” International Journal of Climatology, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2008, pp. 55-67. doi:10.1002/joc.1511
[14] M. Kanamitsu, W. Ebisuzake, J. Woollen, S. K. Yang, J. J. Hnilo, M. Fiorino and G. L. Potter, “NCEP-DEO AMIP-II Reanalysis (R-2),” Bulletin of Atmosphere Meteorology Society, Vol. 83, No. 11, 2002, pp.1631-1643. doi:10.1175/BAMS-83-11-1631
[15] S. Y. Hong and H. L. Pan, “Impact of Soil Moisture Anomalies on Seasonal Summertime Circulation over North America in a Regional Climate Model,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 105, No. D24, 2000, pp. 29625-29634. doi:10.1029/2000JD900276
[16] M. Rodell, P. R. Houser, A. A. Berg and J. S. Famiglietti, “Evaluation of 10 Methods for Initializing a Land Surface Model,” Journal of Hydrometeorology, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2005, pp.146-155. doi:10.1175/JHM414.1

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.