Scientific and human errors in a snow model intercomparison

Twenty-seven models participated in the Earth System Model-Snow Model Intercomparison Project (ESM-SnowMIP), the most data-rich MIP dedicated to snow modeling. Our findings do not support the hypothesis advanced by previous snow MIPs: evaluating models against more variables and providing evaluation datasets extended temporally and spatially does not facilitate identification of key new processes requiring improvement to model snow mass and energy budgets, even at point scales. In fact, the same modeling issues identified by previous snow MIPs arose: albedo is a major source of uncertainty, surface exchange parameterizations are problematic, and individual model performance is inconsistent. This lack of progress is attributed partly to the large number of human errors that led to anomalous model behavior and to numerous resubmissions. It is unclear how widespread such errors are in our field and others; dedicated time and resources will be needed to tackle this issue to prevent highly sophisticated models and their research outputs from being vulnerable because of avoidable human mistakes. The design of and the data available to successive snow MIPs were also questioned. Evaluation of models against bulk snow properties was found to be sufficient for some but inappropriate for more complex snow models whose skills at simulating internal snow properties remained untested. Discussions between the authors of this paper on the purpose of MIPs revealed varied, and sometimes contradictory, motivations behind their participation. These findings started a collaborative effort to adapt future snow MIPs to respond to the diverse needs of the community.

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Author Menard, Cecile B.
Essery, Richard
Krinner, Gerhard
Arduini, Gabriele
Bartlett, Paul
Boone, Aaron
Brutel-Vuilmet, Claire
Burke, Eleanor
Cuntz, Matthias
Dai, Yongjiu
Decharme, Bertrand
Dutra, Emanuel
Fang, Xing
Fierz, Charles
Gusev, Yeugeniy
Hagemann, Stefan
Haverd, Vanessa
Kim, Hyungjun
Lafaysse, Matthieu
Marke, Thomas
Nasonova, Olga
Nitta, Tomoko
Niwano, Masashi
Pomeroy, John
Schädler, Gerd
Semenov, Vladimir A.
Smirnova, Tatiana
Strasser, Ulrich
Swenson, Sean
Turkov, Dmitry
Wever, Nander
Yuan, Hua
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2021-01-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:29:53.986282
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:24417
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Menard, Cecile B., Essery, Richard, Krinner, Gerhard, Arduini, Gabriele, Bartlett, Paul, Boone, Aaron, Brutel-Vuilmet, Claire, Burke, Eleanor, Cuntz, Matthias, Dai, Yongjiu, Decharme, Bertrand, Dutra, Emanuel, Fang, Xing, Fierz, Charles, Gusev, Yeugeniy, Hagemann, Stefan, Haverd, Vanessa, Kim, Hyungjun, Lafaysse, Matthieu, Marke, Thomas, Nasonova, Olga, Nitta, Tomoko, Niwano, Masashi, Pomeroy, John, Schädler, Gerd, Semenov, Vladimir A., Smirnova, Tatiana, Strasser, Ulrich, Swenson, Sean, Turkov, Dmitry, Wever, Nander, Yuan, Hua. (2021). Scientific and human errors in a snow model intercomparison. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7q81hg8. Accessed 27 June 2025.

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