An evaluation of Soil Moisture climatology as derived from CLARIS-LPB regional models

PABLO C. SPENNEMANN; A. CELESTE SAULO; PATRIC SAMUELSSON

Conferencia; 10 ISHCMO; 2012

CLARIS LPB (A Europe-South America network for Climate Change Studies and Impact Assessment) is a European collaborative project aimed at predicting the regional climate change impacts on La Plata Basin (LPB) in South America. Within this framework, there is an specific task which is to produce a coordinated ensemble of regional climate change scenarios in order to better understand the regional effects of climate change and variability on various components of the hydrologic cycle of the LPB, with emphasis in land-surface-atmosphere feedbacks and their impact on extreme events. As a result of this activity, there is now available an ensemble of 11 RCM simulations that were forced with different global models, for the present climate (1961-1990) and for near and distant future. The aim of our work is to analyze how well root zone soil moisture, evapotranspiration and runoff are represented by these models as compared with GLDAS 2 (Global Land Data Assimilation System) data set. Given the potential importance of land-atmosphere coupling over LPB, it is critical to address whether the essential mechanisms and signatures of this forcing are well captured by the RCMs. An emphasis is set on two particular regions of interest: the continental portion of the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) and southeastern South America (SESA). This particular choice responds to some preliminary results that show important differences in soil moisture variability between these regions, being SESA largely dominated by interannual variability, being followed by intraseasonal one, while SACZ variability is largely explained by the seasonal cycle. It will be discussed whether the individual models and/or the ensemble mean are capable of representing this distinct behavior.