An improvement of soil temperature simulations on the Tibetan Plateau

The simulation of soil temperature on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) plays a dominant role in the performance of both global climate and numerical weather forecast models. To improve the simulation of soil temperature on the TP, the Johansen soil thermal conductivity parameterization scheme was introduced into Community Land Model 3.5 (CLM3.5) and Regional Climatic Model 4 (RegCM4). The improved CLM3.5 and RegCM4-CLM were utilized to conduct offline and regional simulation experiments on the TP. Comparison of the new and old schemes revealed that CLM3.5 provides high thermal conductivity parameters of mineral soil solid on the TP. The Johansen scheme is more practical for the TP than the soil thermal conductivity parameterization in CLM3.5. The simulation of soil temperature and liquid water content was improved in offline experiment. The improved parameterization scheme can also reduce the simulation error of soil temperature in winter throughout the entire TP.