HPCCprojects:Linking climate model output with landscape evolution models

From CSDMS


Linking climate model output with landscape evolution models

Project description

To quantify the effects of past and future climate change on landscape evolution, we would like to use climate models to inform landscape evolution models. A key difficulty in coupling these types of models is the separation of time and spatial scales involved. Global climate models typically run on grids of 1 degree or more, at temporal resolution of seconds and run lengths of years to decades. Landscape evolution models (LEMs) reside at the other end of both dimensions, with typical spatial resolutions of meters to km and temporal resolutions of years or decades. The entire duration of a climate model run may be shorter than the timestep of a typical LEM.

Objectives

This project attempts to bridge the relevant scales by downscaling large-scale climate model output for last-glacial and modern times with NCAR’s regional-scale Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The predicted precipitation fields are input to a hydrologic model to generate realistic discharge statistics useful for landscape modeling.

Time-line

Summer 2011 - Summer 2012

Models in use

  • WRF
  • Parflow
  • Child
  • LEMming

Results

Preliminary results will be presented at the Fall 2011 CSDMS meeting, Oct 28-30, Boulder.

Users

  • Dylan Ward
  • Joe Galewsky

Funding

NSF grants EPS-0918635 and EPS-0814449

Publications and presentations

Links