The impacts of heterogeneous land surface fluxes on the diurnal cycle precipitation: A framework for improving the GCM representation of land-atmosphere interactions

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the modulation of the diurnal cycle precipitation by heterogeneous land surface fluxes. By combining the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Land Model (CLM) and vector vorticity equation cloud-resolving model (VVM), experiments are designed to understand the responses of diurnal convection to heterogeneous land surface forcings of various spatial scales and intensities. To delineate the land-atmosphere interactions, a two-step off-line approach is adopted. First, the CLM is driven by observational atmospheric forcing with different characteristic length scales and magnitudes. While the surface fluxes from the CLM show no significant difference in the domain-averaged values, their spatial distribution responds significantly to the precipitation heterogeneity. In the second step, the derived CLM surface fluxes are used to drive the VVM. Results show that the timing of precipitation accelerates with increasing magnitude of surface flux perturbation, while the mean and diurnal ranges of precipitation roughly remain the same. The larger perturbation magnitude enhances the boundary layer vertical kinetic energy, which advances the development of the boundary layer. On the other hand, the mean and diurnal ranges of precipitation increase significantly, and the timing of initial precipitation delays with increasing perturbation length scale. The inland breeze induced by the large patches of surface fluxes tends to enhance the mesoscale organization of deep convection, hence the stronger precipitation. The present results highlight the importance of taking heterogeneous land surface fluxes into consideration in future development of general circulation model convection parameterizations associated with land and atmosphere interactions.