Evaluating the performance of coupled snow–soil models in SURFEXv8 to simulate the permafrost thermal regime at a high Arctic site

Barrere, Mathieu; Domine, Florent; Decharme, Bertrand; Morin, Samuel; Vionnet, Vincent; Lafaysse, Matthieu

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-3461-2017

Articles | Volume 10, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-3461-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

The externalised surface model SURFEX

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-3461-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 9

Model evaluation paper

|

21 Sep 2017

Model evaluation paper |

| 21 Sep 2017

Evaluating the performance of coupled snow–soil models in SURFEXv8 to simulate the permafrost thermal regime at a high Arctic site

Mathieu Barrere, Florent Domine, Bertrand Decharme, Samuel Morin, Vincent Vionnet, and Matthieu Lafaysse

Data sets

Snow, soil and meteorological data at Bylot Island for simulating the permafrost thermal regime and evaluating output of the SURFEXv8 land surface scheme M. Barrere and F. Domine https://doi.org/10.5885/45460CE-9B80A99D55F94D95

La mission de Nordicana D Nordicana D https://doi.org/10.5885/45460CE-9B80A99D55F94D95

Model code and software

Surfex Stéphanie Faroux, Patrick Le Moigne, and Sébastien Dasprez http://www.umr-cnrm.fr/surfex/spip.php?rubrique143

Short summary

Global warming projections still suffer from a limited representation of the permafrost–carbon feedback. This study assesses the capacity of snow-soil coupled models to simulate the permafrost thermal regime at Bylot Island, a high Arctic site. Significant flaws are found in the description of Arctic snow properties, resulting in erroneous heat transfers between the soil and the snow in simulations. Improved snow schemes are needed to accurately predict the future of permafrost.