A sensitive test in the Tibetan Plateau using RAMS

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A sensitive test in the Tibetan Plateau using RAMS
Yuanyuan Qi Inst. Of Remote Sensing Appl./
Chinese Academy of Sciences Lixin Lu Colorado
State University / CIRES-ATOC University of
Colorado Jiancheng Shi University of California
Santa Barbara Lingmei Jiang Beijing Normal
University Marcos Longo Harvard University
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The Tibetan Plateau
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The Tibetan Plateau

• One of the highest elevation feature,
• Vertically mid-troposphere
• Horizontally sub-tropical to mid-latitudes, 25
  longitude.
• Meteorological features
• Large heating source,
• Moisture source during monsoon periods
• Seasonality (heat/water fluxes)

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Goals

• Evaluate the relevance of the soil moisture in
  the energy balance over the Tibetan plateau
• Assess the RAMS sensitiveness to soil moisture
  and how changes of the Tibet soil moisture can
  affect Tibetan Plateau climate.

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Introduction of the test
200 km
50 km
25 km
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Results (grid2)
Mean potential temperature May 2003
Soil moisture 20
Soil moisture 30
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Result (grid3)
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Result (grid3)
Mean potential temperature May 2003
Soil moisture 20
Soil moisture 30
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Problems

• Homogeneous soil moisture is a quite crude
  approximation
• So we use AMSR/E soil moisture data as the
  initial data.

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Difference between runs Grid 2
Mean potential temperature May 2003
Soil moisture 20
AMSR/E initialization
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Difference between runs Grid 2
Potential Temperature Difference AMSR/E Soil
moisture
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Difference between runs Grid 3
Mean potential temperature - May 2003
Soil moisture 20
AMSR/E initialization
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Difference between runs Grid 3
Potential Temperature Difference AMSR/E Soil
moisture
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Conclusion

• Model showed some significant sensitiviness to
  change in initial soil moisture.
• Soil moisture effect was more pronounced over the
  mountainous regions
• Coarser grids showing more effects