An Evaluation of the Strength of Land–Atmosphere Coupling

Abstract

Abstract Two ensembles of 1-month integrations of a coupled land–atmosphere climate model that differ only in their treatment of land surface boundary conditions have been generated from initial conditions chosen from the July states taken from each year of a 17-yr integration from the second Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP2). Both ensembles have specified sea surface temperature from one randomly chosen year, but one ensemble has the land surface state variables specified in each member at each time step to be identical to those from a single member of the other ensemble. Comparisons with the 17-yr AMIP2 integration provide an estimate of the role of interannually varying SST in affecting climate variability. Comparison between the two ensembles helps to quantify the role of land surface variability on the variance of surface fluxes and the climate. In this model system, the impacts of suppressed ocean variability on intra-ensemble spread are generally stronger than for suppressed land su...