Understanding the Role of Rain-On-Snow Events in High Latitude Climates: Soil Temperature and Ecosystem Impacts

该项目将探索冬季积雪覆盖事件对积雪本身和影响气候的土壤特性的影响。这种雨雪事件在雪中形成冰层，影响北极地区的地表条件和地表-大气相互作用。这项研究将利用来自一系列气象站的数据并结合大气模式再分析进行，预计将增进我们对代表北方高纬度地区典型水文和生态的区域气候系统的了解。该项目所用的模型是一个耦合大气-陆地表面的单柱模型，该模型来自国家大气研究中心（NCAR）社区气候系统模型（CCSM），并经过修改以捕获相关的物理学。全球气候模型假设情景的输出将用于确定雨雪事件和其他相关气象条件的频率变化，这些变化将影响未来陆面系统对气候和有蹄类动物种群的影响，这项工作的结果预计将提高北极陆面过程的模拟能力。P.I.s将制作一份报告，分发给气候建模社区，并特别与NCAR CCSM的地表工作组分享。这项工作预计也将使北极土著人民受益，因为它包括雨雪事件对北极有蹄类动物群的影响。

This project will explore the influences of wintertime rainfall-over-snow events on the snow cover itself and on soil properties that affect climate. Such rain-on-snow events create ice layers in the snow which impact land surface conditions and land surface-atmosphere interactions in the Arctic region. The research will be conducted using data from an array of meteorological stations combined with atmospheric model reanalysis, and is expected to advance our understanding of the climate systems in regions representing the typical hydrology and ecology of high northern latitudes. The model used for this project is a coupled atmosphere-land surface, single-column model derived from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Climate System Model (CCSM) and modified to capture the relevant physics. The output from global climate model scenarios are to be used to determine changes in the frequency of rain-on-snow events and other relevant meteorological conditions that impact the future of land-surface systems on climate and on ungulate (hoofed animal) populations.The results of this work are expected to improve modeling capabilities in Arctic land surface processes. The P.I.s will produce a report which they will distributed to the climate modeling community and specifically share with the land-surface working group of the NCAR CCSM. The work is also expected to benefit the Arctic native people since it includes the impact of rain-on-snow events on arctic ungulate herds.