Abstract
Ground surface characteristics (i.e., topography and landscape patterns) are important factors in geographic dynamics. Thus, the complexity of ground surface is a valuable indicator for designing multiscale modeling concerning the balance between computational costs and the accuracy of simulations regarding the resolution of modeling. This study proposes the concept of comprehensive surface complexity (CSC) to quantity the degree of complexity of ground by integrating the topographic complexity indices and landscape indices representing the land use and land cover (LULC) complexity. Focusing on the meteorological process modeling, this paper computes the CSC by constructing a multiple regression model between the accuracy of meteorological simulation and the surface complexity of topography and LULC. Regarding the five widely studied areas of China, this paper shows the distribution of CSC and analyzes the window size effect. The comparison among the study areas shows that the CSC is highest for the Chuanyu region and lowest for the Wuhan region. To investigate the application of CSC in meteorological modeling, taking the Jingjinji region for instance, we conducted Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) modeling and analyzed the relationship between CSC and the mean absolute error (MAE) of the temperature at 2 meters. The results showed that the MAE is higher over the northern and southern areas and lower over the central part of the study area, which is generally positively related to the value of CSC. Thus, it is feasible to conclude that CSC is helpful to indicate meteorological modeling capacity and identify those areas where finer scale modeling is preferable.
Highlights
Characterization of surface complexity is essential throughout the earth sciences, since each geographic process operating at the ground surface encounters and affects the ground surfaces [1]
Li et al [7] argued that the uncertainties in volume calculations based on a digital elevation model (DEM) are primarily related to the discrete error, which is usually caused by DEM resolution and the topographic complexity index (TCI)
In regard to the close relationship between surface complexity and the performance of geographic process modeling, this paper proposed the concept of comprehensive surface complexity (CSC), which was quantified comprehensively based on topographic and land use and land cover (LULC) data
Summary
Characterization of surface complexity is essential throughout the earth sciences, since each geographic process operating at the ground surface encounters and affects the ground surfaces (i.e., topography, land use and land cover, soil) [1]. Given this significance of the ground surface, the complexity is widely applied in many different scenarios, such as identification of active landslides based on topographic complexity [2], design of multiresolution approach to estimate snow water equivalent [3], and so on. The modeling accuracy is related to the TCI of the study area, since the presence of complex terrain causes spatial (in both horizontal and vertical directions) and temporal variations in air flow and turbulence, which strongly influence the meteorological conditions [8]
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