Comment on egusphere-2023-549

Abstract

<strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> Adapting and improving the hydrological processes in Land Surface Models is crucial given the increase of the resolution of the Climate Models to correctly represent the hydrological cycle. The present paper introduces a floodplains scheme adapted to the higher resolution river routing of the ORCHIDEE Land Surface Model. The scheme is based on a sub-tile parameterization of the hydrological units, Hydrological Transfer Unit concept (HTUs), based on high resolution hydrologically-coherent Digital Elevation Models which can be used for all types of resolutions and projections. The floodplain scheme was developed and evaluated for different atmospheric forcings and resolutions (0.5&deg; and 25 km) over one of the world&rsquo;s largest floodplains: the Pantanal, located in Central South America. The floodplains scheme is validated based on the river discharge at the outflow of the Pantanal which represents the hydrological cycle over the basin, the temporal evolution of the water mass over the region assessed by the anomaly of Total Water Storage in Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) and the temporal evaluation of the flooded areas compared to the Global Inundation Extent from Multi-Satellites dataset (GIEMS-2). The hydrological cycle is satisfactorily simulated, however, the base flow may be underestimated. The temporal evolution flooded area is coherent with the observations although the size of the is underestimated in comparison to GIEMS-2. The presence of floodplains increases the soil moisture up to 50 % and decreases average temperature with 3 &deg;C and with 6 &deg;C during the dry season. The higher soil moisture increases the vegetation density and, along with the presence of open water surfaces due to the floodplains, it affects the surface energy budget by increasing the latent flux at the expense of the sensible flux. This is linked to the increase of the evapotranspiration related to the increased water availability. The effect of the floodplains scheme on the land surface conditions highlights that coupled simulations using the floodplains scheme may influence local and regional precipitation and regional circulation.