Coupling of Integrated Biosphere Simulator to Regional Climate Model version 3
Author(s)
Winter, Jonathan (Jonathan Mark)
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Alternative title
Coupling of IBIS to RegCM3
Other Contributors
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Advisor
Elfaith A.B. Eltahir.
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Show full item recordAbstract
Presented in this thesis is a description of the coupling of Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) to Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3), and an assessment of the coupled model (RegCM3-IBIS). RegCM3 is a 3-dimensional, primitive equation limited area model used throughout the world for seasonal predictability and regional climate studies. IBIS is a dynamic global vegetation model that includes representations of land surface processes, canopy physiology, vegetation phenology, terrestrial biogeochemistry, and vegetation dynamics. A single subroutine was created that allows RegCM3 to use IBIS instead of Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme 1 e (BATS 1 e) for surface physics calculations. In addition to coupling the two models, a revised initialization scheme was implemented for RegCM3-IBIS, including an IBIS specific prescription of vegetation and soil types, as well as a new scheme for initializing soil moisture, soil ice, and soil temperature based on simulations using the offline version of IBIS. A series of six 1-year numerical experiments were completed to assess the ability of RegCM3-IBIS to simulate the energy and water budgets, as well as surface temperature. (cont.) The evaluation of RegCM3-IBIS was primarily based on NCEP reanalysis data, and when available, assessment with respect to NASA Surface Radiation Budget data was also included. While RegCM3-IBIS shows reasonable agreement with observations and reanalysis, a deterioration in the ability of RegCM3-IBIS to simulate, most notably, 2 m temperature and latent heat flux, is observed with respect to RegCM3 using BATS l e. However, many aspects of the RegCM3-IBIS results are encouraging, and the problems seen in the untuned version of RegCM3-IBIS are likely to be resolved given further analysis and tuning of parameters.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2006. This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-102).
Date issued
2006Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental EngineeringPublisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keywords
Civil and Environmental Engineering.