Scale - consistent two-way coupling of land-surface and atmospheric models

Research Area:
Land surface - atmosphere exchange, boundary-layer meteorology, hydrometeorology, hydrology, hydrogeology

We are building a fully coupled model system, which comprehensively simulates atmosphere, vegetation and soil including their exchange processes related to water, CO2, heat and momentum. Processes within the sub-systems will be resolved on their respective intrinsic temporal and spatial scales while the two-way coupling between the sub-systems will contain appropriate up- and downscaling schemes. High-resolution modelling, climatological expert knowledge, and evolutionary machine learning techniques will be combined to downscale the atmospheric forcing to the land surface interface based on scaling properties, relief and land cover.

In its second phase, the C4 cluster has two main directions of progress. The first is to improve the downscaling rules in the coupled modeling system. Additional to that, for a more consistent modelling of land surface-atmosphere exchange, CO2 fluxes are included in TerrSysMP. The second direction is to utilize model advancements and the fully coupled TerrSysMP modelling system developed within the Z4 cluster to investigate coupled subsurface-surface-atmospheric feedbacks for different climate regions and under different land cover conditions.

Cooperation partner:

• Colorado School of Mines
• HOBE Center for Hydrology
• Deutscher Wetterdienst - DWD