The Cryosphere
The Cryosphere
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Articles | Volume 17, issue 12
Articles | Volume 17, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5095-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-5095-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 17, issue 12
Research article
 | 
04 Dec 2023
Research article |  | 04 Dec 2023

Improving climate model skill over High Mountain Asia by adapting snow cover parameterization to complex-topography areas

Mickaël Lalande, Martin Ménégoz, Gerhard Krinner, Catherine Ottlé, and Frédérique Cheruy

Data sets

High Mountain Asia UCLA Daily Snow Reanalysis, Version 1 Liu, Y., Y. Fang, and S. A. Margulis https://doi.org/10.5067/HNAUGJQXSCVU

ESA Snow Climate Change Initiative (Snow_cci): Daily global Snow Cover Fraction - snow on ground (SCFG) from MODIS (2000-2020), version 2.0 T. Nagler, G. Schwaizer, N. Mölg, L. Keuris, M., and S. Hetzenecker https://doi.org/10.5285/8847a05eeda646a29da58b42bdf2a87c

ESA Snow Climate Change Initiative (Snow_cci): Daily global Snow Cover Fraction - snow on ground (SCFG) from AVHRR (1982 - 2018), version 2.0 K. Naegeli, C. Neuhaus, A.-B. Salberg, G. Schwaizer, H. Weber, A. Wiesmann, S. Wunderle, and T. Nagler https://doi.org/10.5285/3f034f4a08854eb59d58e1fa92d207b6

Model code and software

JiaweiZhuang/xESMF: v0.3.0 Adding ESMF.LocStream capabilities (v0.3.0) Jiawei Zhuang, raphael dussin, André Jüling, and Stephan Rasp. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3700105

scipy/scipy: SciPy 1.5.2 (v1.5.2) Pauli Virtanen, Ralf Gommers, Evgeni Burovski, Travis E. Oliphant, Warren Weckesser, David Cournapeau, alexbrc, Pearu Peterson, Josh Wilson, Tyler Reddy, Nikolay Mayorov, endolith, Matt Haberland, Andrew Nelson, Stefan van der Walt, Denis Laxalde, Matthew Brett, Ilhan Polat, Eric Larson, and Yu Feng https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3958354

matplotlib/matplotlib: REL: v3.2.2 (v3.2.2) Thomas A. Caswell, Michael Droettboom, Antony Lee, John Hunter, Eric Firing, Elliott Sales de Andrade, Tim Hoffmann, David Stansby, Jody Klymak, Nelle Varoquaux, Jens Hedegaard Nielsen, Benjamin Root, Phil Elson, Ryan May, Darren Dale, Jae-Joon Lee, Jouni K. Seppänen, Damon McDougall, Andrew Straw, and Elan Ernest https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3898017

SciTools/cartopy: Cartopy 0.18.0 (v0.18.0) Phil Elson, Elliott Sales de Andrade, Richard Hattersley, Ed Campbell, Ryan May, Andrew Dawson, Stephane Raynaud, Greg, scmc72, Bill Little, Kevin Donkers, Byron Blay, Peter Killick, marqh, lbdreyer, Patrick Peglar, Nat Wilson, Jon Szymaniak, Andrew, and Andrea Smith. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3783894

TensorFlow (v2.7.0-rc1) TensorFlow Developers https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5593257

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Short summary
This study investigates the impact of topography on snow cover parameterizations using models and observations. Parameterizations without topography-based considerations overestimate snow cover. Incorporating topography reduces snow overestimation by 5–10 % in mountains, in turn reducing cold biases. However, some biases remain, requiring further calibration and more data. Assessing snow cover parameterizations is challenging due to limited and uncertain data in mountainous regions.
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