An Empirical Formula to Compute Snow Cover Fraction in GCMs

作     者：吴统文 吴国雄 

作者机构：State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospherics Sciences and Geophysical Fluid DynamicsInstitute of Atmospheric Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100029 Laboratory for Climate Study National Climate Center Beijing 100081 State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospherics Sciences and Geophysical Fluid DynamicsInstitute of Atmospheric Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100029here exists great uncertainty in parameterizing snow cover fraction in most general circulation models (GCMs) using various empirical formulae which has great influence on the performance of GCMs. This work reviews the commonly used relationships between region-averaged snow depth (or snow water equivalent) and snow cover extent (or fraction) and suggests a new empirical formula to compute snow cover fraction which only depends on the domain-averaged snow depth for GCMs with different horizontal resolution. The new empirical formula is deduced based on the 10-yr (1978-1987) 0.5°×0.5°weekly snow depth data of the scanning multichannel microwave radiometer (SMMR) driven from the Nimbus-7 Satellite. Its validation to estimate snow cover for various GCM resolutions was tested using the climatology of NOAA satellite-observed snow cover. 

出 版 物：《Advances in Atmospheric Sciences》 (大气科学进展（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2004年第21卷第4期

页      面：529-535页

核心收录：

学科分类：07[理学] 070601[理学-气象学] 0706[理学-大气科学] 

基　　金：This work was conducted unlder the joint support of the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China under Grant Nos.40005008 and 40135020 the Chinese Academy Project ZKCX2-SW-210 

主　　题：snow cover fraction parameterization satellite derived snow depth GCM 

摘      要：There exists great uncertainty in parameterizing snow cover fraction in most general circulation models (GCMs) using various empirical formulae, which has great influence on the performance of GCMs. This work reviews the commonly used relationships between region-averaged snow depth (or snow water equivalent) and snow cover extent (or fraction) and suggests a new empirical formula to compute snow cover fraction, which only depends on the domain-averaged snow depth, for GCMs with different horizontal resolution. The new empirical formula is deduced based on the 10-yr (1978-1987) 0.5°× 0.5° weekly snow depth data of the scanning multichannel microwave radiometer (SMMR) driven from the Nimbus-7 Satellite. Its validation to estimate snow cover for various GCM resolutions was tested using the climatology of NOAA satellite-observed snow cover.