A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models

Abstract

A generalization of the single soil layer variable infiltration capacity (VIC) land surface hydrological model previously implemented in the G.F.D.L. GCM is described. The new model is comprised of a two-layer characterization of the soil column, and uses an aerodynamic representation of the latent and sensible heat fluxes at the land surface. The infiltration algorithm for the upper layer is essentially the same as for the single layer VIC model. The model partitions the area of interest (e.g., grid cell) into multiple land surface cover types; for each land cover type the fraction of roots in the upper and lower zone is specified. Once the latent heat flux has been computed, the surface energy balance is iterated to solve for the land surface temperature at each time step. -from Authors