TY - JOUR
T1 - The groundwater-land-surface-atmosphere connection
T2 - Soil moisture effects on the atmospheric boundary layer in fully-coupled simulations
AU - Maxwell, Reed M.
AU - Chow, Fotini Katopodes
AU - Kollet, Stefan J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was conducted under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) under contract W-7405-Eng and was supported by the LLNL Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at LLNL. We are grateful for the efforts of Q. Duan and P. Granvold in support of this project. We are also grateful to M. Parlange, D. Gochis, and the three anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly added to the clarity of this manuscript.
PY - 2007/12
Y1 - 2007/12
N2 - This study combines a variably-saturated groundwater flow model and a mesoscale atmospheric model to examine the effects of soil moisture heterogeneity on atmospheric boundary layer processes. This parallel, integrated model can simulate spatial variations in land-surface forcing driven by three-dimensional (3D) atmospheric and subsurface components. The development of atmospheric flow is studied in a series of idealized test cases with different initial soil moisture distributions generated by an offline spin-up procedure or interpolated from a coarse-resolution dataset. These test cases are performed with both the fully-coupled model (which includes 3D groundwater flow and surface water routing) and the uncoupled atmospheric model. The effects of the different soil moisture initializations and lateral subsurface and surface water flow are seen in the differences in atmospheric evolution over a 36-h period. The fully-coupled model maintains a realistic topographically-driven soil moisture distribution, while the uncoupled atmospheric model does not. Furthermore, the coupled model shows spatial and temporal correlations between surface and lower atmospheric variables and water table depth. These correlations are particularly strong during times when the land-surface temperatures trigger shifts in wind behavior, such as during early morning surface heating.
AB - This study combines a variably-saturated groundwater flow model and a mesoscale atmospheric model to examine the effects of soil moisture heterogeneity on atmospheric boundary layer processes. This parallel, integrated model can simulate spatial variations in land-surface forcing driven by three-dimensional (3D) atmospheric and subsurface components. The development of atmospheric flow is studied in a series of idealized test cases with different initial soil moisture distributions generated by an offline spin-up procedure or interpolated from a coarse-resolution dataset. These test cases are performed with both the fully-coupled model (which includes 3D groundwater flow and surface water routing) and the uncoupled atmospheric model. The effects of the different soil moisture initializations and lateral subsurface and surface water flow are seen in the differences in atmospheric evolution over a 36-h period. The fully-coupled model maintains a realistic topographically-driven soil moisture distribution, while the uncoupled atmospheric model does not. Furthermore, the coupled model shows spatial and temporal correlations between surface and lower atmospheric variables and water table depth. These correlations are particularly strong during times when the land-surface temperatures trigger shifts in wind behavior, such as during early morning surface heating.
KW - Coupled model
KW - Groundwater-atmosphere coupling
KW - Land-atmosphere interactions
KW - Soil moisture heterogeneity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34848872576&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=34848872576&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.advwatres.2007.05.018
DO - 10.1016/j.advwatres.2007.05.018
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:34848872576
SN - 0309-1708
VL - 30
SP - 2447
EP - 2466
JO - Advances in Water Resources
JF - Advances in Water Resources
IS - 12
ER -