Impact of Arctic Wetlands on the Climate System: Model Sensitivity Simulations with the MIROC5 AGCM and a Snow-Fed Wetland Scheme

Abstract

AbstractWetlands cover large areas of the middle and high latitudes and influence the surface water and energy budget, surface hydrology, and the climate system. In this study, a scheme implicitly representing a snow-fed wetland, in which snowmelt can be stored with consideration of subgrid terrain complexity, was implemented in the Minimal Advanced Treatments of Surface Interaction and Runoff (MATSIRO) land surface model. An atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) experiment was conducted using the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate, version 5 (MIROC5), with and without the wetland scheme, with the main aim of reducing the model bias of warm and dry boreal summer at mid- to high latitudes. The experiment showed not only a better surface hydrology but also a weaker land?atmosphere coupling strength and larger (smaller) latent (sensible) heat flux due to the delayed snowmelt runoff. The summer warm and dry bias was partially improved over snowy and flat areas, particularly over much of western Eurasia and North America, without an apparent deterioration of simulated surface hydrology and climate over the rest of the land in the other seasons; the mean absolute error of 2-m air temperature and precipitation over land at 45°?90°N in summer decreased by 19% and 4%, respectively. The next step of model development will involve implementing an explicit representation of subgrid-scale surface water and related processes.