Land-Atmosphere Interaction in IPCC AR4 Climate Models

This study examines the land-atmosphere interaction in 13 coupled general circulation models (CGCMs) participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Feedbacks related to both water cycle and energy budget are studied. Long-term observational datasets from Indian summer monsoon (ISM), western North Pacific summer monsoon (WNPSM), and eastern Asian summer monsoon (EASM) regions are used to validate the model simulations. The results show that most of the models simulate better land-atmosphere interactions in the ISM region than in the EASM region, especially for the soil moisture-precipitation relationship. We also found some interesting results regarding the surface temperature-shortwave flux relationship. Detailed results will be presented at the conference.