Numerical simulations of land surface physical processes and land-atmosphere interactions over oasis-desert/Gobi region

A land-surface physical process model was coupled with a mesoscale atmospheric model. This coupled model was then used to simulate the interactions between land and the atmosphere, including surface temperature, net radiation, sensible heat flux and latent heat flux over a desert/Gobi with an oasis in northwestern semiarid regions in China. Comparisons between observations and simulations were made over the oasis and the desert/Gobi, respectively. Both cold island effect and wet island effect, the so-called oasis effect, were observed and simulated. Lower temperature, higher specific humidity and weaker turbulent transfer were present over the oasis than the desert/Gobi. A subsidence occurred over the oasis, leading to a thermally-generated mesoscale circulation.