Abstract
Applying the Terrestrial Systems Modeling Platform, TSMP, this study provides the first simulated long-term (1996–2018), high-resolution (~12.5 km) terrestrial system climatology over Europe, which comprises variables from groundwater across the land surface to the top of the atmosphere (G2A). The data set offers an unprecedented opportunity to test hypotheses related to short- and long-range feedback processes in space and time between the different interacting compartments of the terrestrial system. The physical consistency of simulated states and fluxes in the terrestrial system constitutes the uniqueness of the data set: while most regional climate models (RCMs) have a tendency to simplify the soil moisture and groundwater representation, TSMP explicitly simulates a full 3D soil- and groundwater dynamics, closing the terrestrial water cycle from G2A. As anthopogenic impacts are excluded, the dataset may serve as a near-natural reference for global change simulations including human water use and climate change. The data set is available as netCDF files for the pan-European EURO-CORDEX domain.
Highlights
Background & SummaryOne of the main impacts of climate change highlighted by the 5th IPCC assessment report (AR5) is “the amplification of temperature extremes by changes in soil moisture”[1,2,3], via a positive feedback mechanism that intensifies and increases the frequency of heat waves given the projected increase in summer drying conditions
Because in most land surface models (LSMs) water transport and runoff has historically been treated in a simplified way, combined with free drainage lower boundary conditions in the subsurface, soil moisture states and fluxes and interactions between groundwater and soil moisture are biased with multiple impacts especially in areas with shallower groundwater, e.g., on the land-atmosphere coupling and the reproduction of extremes such as heat waves[6]
The AR5 acknowledges that the spread in regional climate projections over Europe is still substantial, due to large uncertainties related to natural heterogeneity and chaotic processes, and due the inherent model structural deficiencies in fully representing two-way, non-linear feedbacks across the terrestrial system
Summary
One of the main impacts of climate change highlighted by the 5th IPCC assessment report (AR5) is “the amplification of temperature extremes by changes in soil moisture”[1,2,3], via a positive feedback mechanism that intensifies and increases the frequency of heat waves given the projected increase in summer drying conditions. The associated processes of the terrestrial water and energy cycle result from the interactions between the subsurface, the land surface and the atmosphere These processes are essential to reproduce, predict and project climatic extreme events in simulations[4,5]. Previous TSMP simulations over Europe concentrated on the 2003 heat wave, showing a significant impact of groundwater states and the related land-atmosphere feedbacks[15], and demonstrating far reaching impacts of human water use, beyond the local scale through atmospheric moisture transport[16]. TSMP is run for the European CORDEX domain[17] as a first step to establish a terrestrial systems climatology for the past decades, with a focus on a physically consistent representation of variably saturated groundwater and overland flow coupled with land surface and atmospheric processes. The TSMP- G2A data set is a valuable innovative data set to analyze and understand the mechanisms and interactions of water and energy in the terrestrial system including extreme events such as heat waves and droughts
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