Abstract
ABSTRACTThis sensitivity study applies the offline Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) version 3.6 to simulate snowpack evolution in idealized topography using observations at Likely, British Columbia, Canada over 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009. A strategy for a subgrid-scale snow (SSS) parameterization is developed to incorporate two key features: ten elevation bands at 100 m intervals to capture air temperature lapse rates, and five slope angles on four aspects to resolve solar radiation impacts on the evolution of snow depth and SWE. Simulations reveal strong elevational dependencies of snow depth and SWE when adjusting temperatures using a moist adiabatic lapse rate with elevation, with 26% peak SWE differences between that at the average elevation versus the mean of the remainder of the elevation bands. Differences in peak SWE on north- and south-facing slopes increase from 3.0 mm at 10° slope to 17.9 mm at 50° slope. When applied to elevation, slope and aspect combinations derived from a high-resolution digital elevation model, elevation dominates the control of peak SWE values. Inclusion of the range of SSS effects into a regional climate model will improve snowpack and hydrological simulations of western North America's snow-dominated, mountainous watersheds.
Highlights
Many global and regional climate models (GCMs/RCMs) are available to study the evolution of the climate system including the impacts of climate change on the cryosphere
This paper presents preliminary results on the development of a subgrid-scale snow (SSS) parameterization for Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) simulations to explore the effects of varying elevations, slopes and aspects on snow depth and SWE evolution in idealized settings
CLASS was first validated against observational data at the Quesnel River Research Centre (QRRC) weather station in Likely, British Columbia (BC) for the period 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009, revealing negative biases in the simulated snowpack accumulation and an early onset of melt
Summary
Many global and regional climate models (GCMs/RCMs) are available to study the evolution of the climate system including the impacts of climate change on the cryosphere. CLASS uses seven variables as meteorological forcing, all of which are available at 15 min intervals over 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009 from QRRC meteorological station values: incoming long and shortwave radiation, 2 m air temperature and relative humidity (with respect to water), 10 m wind speed, atmospheric pressure and precipitation.
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