Evaluating and Enhancing Snow Compaction Process in the Noah-MP Land Surface Model

Abstract

The accuracy of snow density in land surface model (LSM) simulations impacts the accuracy of simulated terrestrial water and energy budgets. However, there has been little research that has focused on enhancing snow compaction in operationally used LSMs. A baseline snow simulation with the widely used Noah-MP LSM systematically overestimates snow depth by 55 mm even after removing daily snow water equivalent (SWE) biases. To reduce uncertainties associated with snow compaction, we enhance the most sensitive Noah-MP snow compaction parameter—the empirical parameter for compaction due to overburden (Cbd)—such that Cbd is calculated as a function of surface air temperature as opposed to a fixed value in the baseline simulation. This enhancement improves accuracy in simulated snow compaction across the majority of western U.S. (WUS) SNOTEL test sites (biases reduced at 88% of test sites), with modest bias reductions in cooler accumulation periods (biases reduced at 70% of test sites) and substantial improvements during warmer ablation periods (biases reduced at 99% of test sites). Relatively larger improvements during warm conditions are attributable to the default Cbd value being reasonable for cold temperatures (≤−5°C). Improvements in simulated snow depth and density with observations outside of the training sites and optimization periods support that the snow compaction enhancement is transferable in space and time. Differences between enhanced and baseline gridded simulations across the total WUS support that the enhancement can have important impacts on snowpack evolution, snow albedo feedback, and snow hydrology.