Effects of Mosaic Representation of Land Use/Land Cover on Skin Temperature and Energy Fluxes in Noah‐MP Land Surface Model Over China

Abstract

AbstractThe representations of land use/land cover (LULC) play an important role in land surface models (LSMs) for the simulation of the energy flux partition, soil moisture redistribution, and runoff generation. This study was designed to investigate the regional effects of mosaic LULC representations on skin temperature (Ts) and energy fluxes over China at three horizontal resolutions and how these effects changed with climate regimes, using Noah with multiparameterization (Noah‐MP) LSM. The current officially released Noah‐MP only considered the most abundant LULC type within one model grid. In this study, the mosaic method considering all the LULC types existing in one model grid was implemented into Noah‐MP. Against the reference data (including MODIS land surface temperature products, FLUXCOM energy flux data and Numerical Terra dynamic Simulation Group evapotranspiration data), the mosaic method generally performed better than the default method and reduced the root‐mean‐squared‐error of Ts and energy fluxes significantly over urban region. The mosaic method affected the Ts and energy fluxes by changing leaf area index and soil moisture, mainly by the former. The warm (monthly mean air temperature larger than 10 °C) and relatively humid climate (annual total precipitation larger than 200 mm) could enlarge the effect of mosaic method on Ts and energy fluxes. The mosaic method reduced discrepancies of Ts and energy fluxes among three horizontal resolutions (0.0625°, 0.25°, and 0.50°), especially over the heterogeneous vegetated and urban region.