JP5.7
Studies of soil moisture content in the Lmd GCM
Thanh Ngo-duc Jr., LMD, Paris, France; and K. Laval, J. Polcher, and A. Cazenave
Satellite Altimetry from Topex-Poseidon is used to estimate the annual variation of the global sea level. This observed signal, corrected for steric effects, can give the seasonal variations of soil moisture and snow mass over continents. These observations can be used to study the realism of the soil moisture simulations in General Circulation Models.
A new land surface scheme, Orchidee, has been developed at the Institute Pierre Simon Laplace. It has been integrated in an off-line mode and coupled to the LMD atmospheric General Circulation Model. The soil moisture content and snow mass simulated by these integrations are compared to observations.
We analyse the importance of different regions or catchment basins to the global signal; the role of each water flux simulated by Orchidee in determining the range of annual soil moisture variation; the interannual variability of soil moisture content simulated by the LMD GCM.
Joint Poster Session 5, Role of Vegetation and Land Use/Land Cover in the water cycle Poster Session (Joint with the Symposium on Observing and Understanding the Variability of Water in Weather and Climate and the 17th Conference on Hydrology)
Thursday, 13 February 2003, 9:45 AM-11:00 AM
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