Snow in earth system modelling

Séminaire de Richard Essery, jeudi 13 avril à 13h, salle 105 OSUG B

Titre : La neige dans les modèles des systèmes terrestres

Résumé : Seasonal snow cover profoundly and directly affects the climate,
hydrology, ecology and economies of large areas in the Northern Hemisphere
and contributes to river flow over even larger areas. Even the earliest 3D
climate models in the 1960s had to include simple representations of snow
in their calculations of land surface energy balance and hydrology, and
accurately representing the influences of snow is now becoming ever more
important as the range of environmental processes being integrated in
Earth System Models widens. Current models have been found to
underestimate the decreasing trend and interannual variability in snow
cover over recent decades, however, and they differ greatly in projections
of future snow extent. The Earth System Model - Snow Model Intercomparison
Project (ESM-SnowMIP is intended to assess the strengths and weaknesses of
snow models used in ESMs to provide guidance for their improvement. In
addition to global simulations, ESM-SnowMIP will include simulations
driven by and evaluated against data from well-instrumented snow research
sites. Initial results from these reference sites will be presented.

Par Richard ESSERY (University of Edinburgh)
Séminaire animé par Jean-Emmanuel SICART (IGE_CYME)