Identification

Title

Improved crossâ€scale snow cover simulations by developing a scaleâ€aware ground snow cover fraction parameterization in the Noahâ€MP land surface model

Abstract

Snow cover fraction (SCF) accuracy in land surface models (LSMs) impacts the accuracy of surface albedo and land‐atmosphere interactions. However, SCF is a large source of uncertainty, partially because of the scale‐dependent nature of snow depletion curves that is not parameterized by LSMs. Using the spatially and temporally complete observationally‐informed STC‐MODSCAG and Snow Data Assimilation System data sets, we develop a new scale‐aware ground SCF parameterization and implement it into the Noah‐MP LSM. The new scale‐aware parameterization significantly reduces ground SCF errors and the scale‐dependence of errors in the western U.S (WUS) compared with the baseline ground SCF formulation. Specifically, the baseline formulation overestimates ground SCF by 4%, 6%, 9%, and 12% at 1‐km, 3‐km, 13‐km, and 25‐km resolutions in the WUS, respectively, whereas biases from the enhanced scale‐aware scheme are reduced to 0%–2% in box model simulations and do not exhibit a relationship with spatial scales. Noah‐MP simulations using the scale‐aware parameterization have smaller mean (peak) ground SCF biases than the baseline simulation by 1%–2% (3%–5%), with spatiotemporal variability depending on land cover, topography, and snow depth. Noah‐MP simulations using the enhanced scale‐aware parameterization remove the baseline WUS surface albedo overestimates of 0.01–0.03 in the 1‐km to 25‐km resolution simulations, relative to Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer retrievals. The Noah‐MP ground SCF and surface albedo improvements due to the scale‐aware parameterization are found across most land cover classifications and elevations, indicating the enhanced ground SCF scheme can improve simulated snowpack and surface energy budget accuracy across a variety of WUS landscapes.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7w66r7s

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

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End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2025-06-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

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Conformity

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Use constraints

<span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:10pt;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-root="1">Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</span>

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact