Identification

Title

On the Coupling Strength Between the Land Surface and the Atmosphere

Abstract

This study addresses the land-atmospheric coupling strength by using long-term AmeriFlux data from a wide range of land covers and climate regimes to reconstitute the surface exchange coefficient, C h , which governs the total surface heat fluxes. For spring and summer, results show stronger coupling for tall canopy with C h values ten times larger than for shorter vegetation. Observed C h are then compared to values from the Noah land model. Results indicate that Noah underestimated (overestimated) C h for forest (grass and crops), implying an insufficient (too efficient) coupling for tall canopy (short canopy). This discrepancy is attributed to the treatment of the roughness length for heat. With modest adjustments, the Noah model can reproduce the observed C h . This study highlights the crucial role of treating the surface exchange processes in coupled land/weather/climate models and the need to use long-term flux data for different vegetation types and climate regimes to assess and mitigate their deficiencies.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d798888m

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2009-05-29T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact