TY - JOUR
T1 - On the Influence of Vegetation Cover Changes and Vegetation-Runoff Systems on the Simulated Summer Potential Evapotranspiration of Tropical Africa Using RegCM4
AU - Anwar, Samy A.
AU - Mamadou, Ossénatou
AU - Diallo, Ismaila
AU - Sylla, Mouhamadou Bamba
N1 - Funding Information:
The OFID-ICTP is acknowledged for supporting the fund for the STEP program supported by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). The Earth System Physics (ESP) of the ICTP is acknowledged for providing the RegCM code, computational facilities, and input data to run the RegCM4 model. The Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia is acknowledged for providing potential evapotranspiration dataset. SRB data were originally provided by the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Sciences Data Center NASA/GEWEX SRB Project. We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive comments to improve the manuscript quality.
Funding Information:
The OFID-ICTP is acknowledged for supporting the fund for the STEP program supported by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). The Earth System Physics (ESP) of the ICTP is acknowledged for providing the RegCM code, computational facilities, and input data to run the RegCM4 model. The Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia is acknowledged for providing potential evapotranspiration dataset. SRB data were originally provided by the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Sciences Data Center NASA/GEWEX SRB Project. We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive comments to improve the manuscript quality.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - The community land model version 4.5 provides two ways for treating the vegetation cover changes (a static versus an interactive) and two runoff schemes for tracking the soil moisture changes. In this study, we examined the sensitivity of the simulated boreal summer potential evapotranspiration (PET) to the aforementioned options using a regional climate model. Three different experiments with each one covering 16 years have been performed. The two runoff schemes were designated as SIMTOP (TOP) and variable infiltration capacity (VIC). Both runoff schemes were coupled to the carbon–nitrogen (CN) module, thus the vegetation status can be influenced by soil moisture changes. Results show that vegetation cover changes alone affect considerably the simulated 2-m mean air temperature (T2M). However, they do not affect the global incident solar radiation (RSDS) and PET. Conversely to the vegetation cover changes alone, the vegetation-runoff systems affect both the T2M and RSDS. Therefore, they considerably affect the simulated PET. Also, the CN-VIC overestimates the PET more than the CN-TOP compared to the Climatic Research Unit observational dataset. In comparison with the static vegetation case and CN-VIC, the CN-TOP shows the least bias of the simulated PET. Overall, our results show that the vegetation-runoff system is relevant in constraining the PET, though the CN-TOP can be recommended for future studies concerning the PET of tropical Africa.
AB - The community land model version 4.5 provides two ways for treating the vegetation cover changes (a static versus an interactive) and two runoff schemes for tracking the soil moisture changes. In this study, we examined the sensitivity of the simulated boreal summer potential evapotranspiration (PET) to the aforementioned options using a regional climate model. Three different experiments with each one covering 16 years have been performed. The two runoff schemes were designated as SIMTOP (TOP) and variable infiltration capacity (VIC). Both runoff schemes were coupled to the carbon–nitrogen (CN) module, thus the vegetation status can be influenced by soil moisture changes. Results show that vegetation cover changes alone affect considerably the simulated 2-m mean air temperature (T2M). However, they do not affect the global incident solar radiation (RSDS) and PET. Conversely to the vegetation cover changes alone, the vegetation-runoff systems affect both the T2M and RSDS. Therefore, they considerably affect the simulated PET. Also, the CN-VIC overestimates the PET more than the CN-TOP compared to the Climatic Research Unit observational dataset. In comparison with the static vegetation case and CN-VIC, the CN-TOP shows the least bias of the simulated PET. Overall, our results show that the vegetation-runoff system is relevant in constraining the PET, though the CN-TOP can be recommended for future studies concerning the PET of tropical Africa.
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U2 - 10.1007/s41748-021-00252-3
DO - 10.1007/s41748-021-00252-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85114879270
SN - 2509-9426
VL - 5
SP - 883
EP - 897
JO - Earth Systems and Environment
JF - Earth Systems and Environment
IS - 4
ER -
