Evaluating CEOP model performance with the observational data from Tongyu reference site, semi-arid region of China

Abstract

Using data archived in the Coordinated Enhanced Observing Period (CEOP) project, comparisons between field observations undertaken at Tongyu CEOP reference site in China and model output from year 2003 to 2004 have been implemented, and in particular, the time series and diurnal cycles of precipitation, near-surface temperature, air temperature, and latent and sensible heat fluxes are presented. The results show that the ability of the model simulations on the temperatures, such as air temperature and the surface temperature, is satisfactory compared with the simulations on the land surface heat fluxes and the precipitation at Tongyu site. In addition, the multi-model ensemble exhibits better results over all items in comparison with the observations. The differences of the precipitation at the interannual and the seasonal time scales between the model results and observations indicate that some of the models are able to reproduce the larger amount of precipitation in 2003 than that in 2004, which is consistent with the trend of the observations at Tongyu site even though the mean square errors of models output calculated from daily precipitation during year 2003 and 2004 are even greater than the daily amount of the precipitation. The poor skill in the quantitative simulation of the precipitation indicates that the deficiency of the models in simulating the surface heat fluxes may be closely related to the biases of the precipitation simulations. In terms of the seasonal time series of the precipitation, there is an increase during summer, accompanied by the same increased trend of the latent heat flux and the decreased trend of the sensible heat flux from the insitu observations.