Assessment and simulation of global terrestrial latent heat flux by synthesis of CMIP5 climate models and surface eddy covariance observations

Yunjun Yao; Shunlin Liang; Xianglan Li; Shaomin Liu; Jiquan Chen; Xiaotong Zhang; Kun Jia; Bo Jiang; Xianhong Xie; Simon Munier; Meng Liu; Jian Yu; Anders Lindroth; Andrej Varlagin; Antonio Raschi; Asko Noormets; Casimiro Pio; Georg Wohlfahrt; Ge Sun; Jean-Christophe Domec; Leonardo Montagnani; Magnus Lund; Moors Eddy; Peter D. Blanken; Thomas Grunwald; Sebastian Wolf; Vincenzo Magliulo

doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.03.016

Assessment and simulation of global terrestrial latent heat flux by synthesis of CMIP5 climate models and surface eddy covariance observations

Formally Refereed

Authors:

Yunjun Yao, Shunlin Liang, Xianglan Li, Shaomin Liu, Jiquan Chen, Xiaotong Zhang, Kun Jia, Bo Jiang, Xianhong Xie, Simon Munier, Meng Liu, Jian Yu, Anders Lindroth, Andrej Varlagin, Antonio Raschi, Asko Noormets, Casimiro Pio, Georg Wohlfahrt, Ge Sun, Jean-Christophe Domec, Leonardo Montagnani, Magnus Lund, Moors Eddy, Peter D. Blanken, Thomas Grunwald, Sebastian Wolf, Vincenzo Magliulo

Year:

2016

Type:

Scientific Journal

Station:

Southern Research Station

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.03.016

Source:

Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

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Abstract

The latent heat flux (LE) between the terrestrial biosphere and atmosphere is a major driver of the globalhydrological cycle. In this study, we evaluated LE simulations by 45 general circulation models (GCMs)in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) by a comparison with eddy covariance (EC) observations from 240 globally distributed sites from 2000 to 2009. In addition, we improved globalterrestrial LE estimates for different land cover types by synthesis of seven best CMIP5 models and EC observations based on a Bayesian model averaging (BMA) method. The comparison results showed sub-stantial differences in monthly LE among all GCMs. The model CESM1-CAM5 has the best performance withthe highest predictive skill and a Taylor skill score (S) from 0.51–0.75 for different land cover types. Thecross-validation results illustrate that the BMA method has improved the accuracy of the CMIP5 GCM’s LE simulation with a decrease in the averaged root-mean-square error (RMSE) by more than 3 W/m²when compared to the simple model averaging (SMA) method and individual GCMs. We found an increas-ing trend in the BMA-based global terrestrial LE (slope of 0.018 W/m²yr⁻¹, p < 0.05) during the period 1970–2005. This variation may be attributed directly to the inter-annual variations in air temperature (T_a), surface incident solar radiation (R_s) and precipitation (P). However, our study highlights a largedifference from previous studies in a continuous increasing trend after 1998, which may be caused by the combined effects of the variations of Rs, T_a, and P on LE for different models on these time scales. This study provides corrected-modeling evidence for an accelerated global water cycle with climate change.

Keywords

Global terrestrial LE CMIP5 GCMs BMA Taylor skill scorea

Citation

Yao, Yunjun; Liang, Shunlin; Li, Xianglan; Liu, Shaomin; Chen, Jiquan; Zhang, Xiaotong; Jia, Kun; Jiang, Bo; Xie, Xianhong; Munier, Simon; Liu, Meng; Yu, Jian; Lindroth, Anders; Varlagin, Andrej; Raschi, Antonio; Noormets, Asko; Pio, Casimiro; Wohlfahrt, Georg; Sun, Ge; Domec, Jean-Christophe; Montagnani, Leonardo; Lund, Magnus; Eddy, Moors; Blanken, Peter D.; Grunwald, Thomas; Wolf, Sebastian; Magliulo, Vincenzo. 2016. Assessment and simulation of global terrestrial latent heat flux by synthesis of CMIP5 climate models and surface eddy covariance observations. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Vol. 223: 17 pages.: 151-167.