The recently released community land model (CLM2) is coupled to the Florida State University (FSU) climate model to improve land surface properties and investigate its role in the seasonal climate studies. The original land parameterization in the FSU model estimates the surface fluxes of momentum, heat, and moisture via similarity theory. The surface temperature is obtained by the surface energy balance coupled to similarity theory. The CLM2 is a new and advanced land surface model. With improved physical parameterizations, it uses five primary subgrid land cover types and plant functional types obtained from satellite data.

Simulations with the atmospheric model coupled to the CLM2 (hereafter, CLM) are compared to the control (the original FSU model). Results show that the CLM experiment improves the seasonal simulation relative to the control. Noticeable improvements were found in the simulation of the surface temperature, evaporation, and latent heat fluxes. The CLM2 reduced much of the surface temperature cold bias noted in the control run.

The impact of various deep convective parameterizations is examined on seasonal timescales to further assess model performance.