Evaluation of the CABLEv2.3.4 Land Surface Model Coupled to NU-WRFv3.9.1.1 in Simulating Temperature and Precipitation Means and Extremes Over CORDEX AustralAsia Within a WRF Physics Ensemble

Abstract

The Community Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange (CABLE) model is a third-generation land surface model (LSM). CABLE is commonly used as a stand-alone LSM, coupled to the Australian Community Climate and Earth Systems Simulator global climate model and coupled to the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model for regional applications. Here, we evaluate an updated version of CABLE within a WRF physics ensemble over the COordinated Regional Downscaling EXperiment (CORDEX) AustralAsia domain. The ensemble consists of different cumulus, radiation and planetary boundary layer (PBL) schemes. Simulations are carried out within the NASA Unified WRF modeling framework, NU-WRF. Our analysis did not identify one configuration that consistently performed the best for all diagnostics and regions. Of the cumulus parameterizations the Grell-Freitas cumulus scheme consistently overpredicted precipitation, while the new Tiedtke scheme was the best in simulating the timing of precipitation events. For the radiation schemes, the RRTMG radiation scheme had a general warm bias. For the PBL schemes, the YSU scheme had a warm bias, and the MYJ PBL scheme a cool bias. Results are strongly dependent on the region of interest, with the northern tropics and southwest Western Australia being more sensitive to the choice of physics options compared to southeastern Australia which showed less overall variation and overall better performance across the ensemble. Comparisons with simulations using the Unified Noah LSM showed that CABLE in NU-WRF has a more realistic simulation of evapotranspiration when compared to GLEAM estimates.