Evaluation of snow cover and depth simulated by a land-surface model using detailed regional snow observations from Austria

Parajka, Juraj; Dadson, Simon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6144-4639; Lafon, Thomas; Essery, Richard. 2010 Evaluation of snow cover and depth simulated by a land-surface model using detailed regional snow observations from Austria. Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, 115, D24117. 17, pp. 10.1029/2010JD014086

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Abstract/Summary

An evaluation is undertaken of the accuracy with which the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) can simulate snow cover and depth when driven using data from the Hadley Centre Regional Climate Model. The JULES model provides the facility to diagnose the thermal and hydrological state of the land surface and soil given time-varying inputs of air temperature, wind speed, humidity, shortwave and long-wave radiation, and precipitation. The observed dataset used in this study consists of daily snow depths measurements at 601 climate stations with more than 15 years of observations in the period from January 1976 to December 2000. In this study, the JULES model was driven using two datasets at 25 km horizontal resolution: one produced using the UK Met Office Hadley Centre regional climate model (RCM), HadRM3-P (RCM), the other in which RCM precipitation and air temperature data were replaced with observed values (RCM+PT). The results indicate good agreement between the land-surface model simulations and observations of snow cover at climate stations. The median snow cover accuracy indices for all 601 stations were 89% and 91% for the RCM and the combined RCM+PT driving datasets, respectively, with only a small inter-annual variation. In contrast, the differences between modeled and measured snow depth were much larger. The median values of mean snow depth bias were similar, −0.4 cm for the RCM and −1.2 cm for the RCM+PT, however, the RCM simulation was found to overestimate the observed snow depth at more than 25% of climate stations. The extent to which the results from RCM-driven simulations match observed data is strongly related to the accuracy of the RCM precipitation. The large overestimation has significant impact on the snow mass simulation and the assessment of extreme values in the mountains. We note that even if snow cover can be simulated with a high degree of accuracy, this should not imply a similarly high degree of accuracy in the simulation of snow depth. Model performance was poorest in regions of significant topographic heterogeneity and our findings suggest that the most promising additional model developments should be directed towards computationally-efficient representation of sub-grid topography.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1029/2010JD014086
Programmes:	CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Water > WA Topic 1 - Variability and Change in Water Systems > WA - 1.3 - Model, attribute and predict impacts of climate and land cover change on hydrological and freshwater systems
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Harding (to July 2011)
ISSN:	0148-0227
Date made live:	12 Jan 2011 12:27 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/10988

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