Simulation of Land Surface Climate over China with RegCM4.5: Verification and Analysis

Abstract EN

The ability of RegCM4.5 using land surface scheme CLM4.5 to simulate the physical variables related to land surface state was investigated.

The NCEP-NCAR reanalysis data for the period 1964–2003 were used to drive RegCM4.5 to simulate the land surface temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, latent heat flux, and surface evaporation.

Based on observations and reanalysis data, a few land surface variables were analyzed over China.

The results showed that some seasonal features of land surface temperature in summer and winter as well as its magnitude could be simulated well.

The simulation of precipitation was sensitive to region and season.

The model could, to a certain degree, simulate the seasonal migration of rainband in East China.

The overall spatial distribution of the simulated soil moisture was better in winter than in summer.

The simulation of latent heat flux was also better in winter.

In summer, the latent heat flux bias mainly arose from surface evaporation bias in Northwest China, and it primarily arose from vegetation evapotranspiration bias in South China.

In addition, the large latent heat flux bias in South China during summer was probably due to less precipitation generated in the model and poor representation of vegetation cover in this region.