Projected Changes in Soil Temperature and Surface Energy Budget Components over the Alps and Northern Italy

Water

SeonKi Park¹  Claudio Cassardo²  Marco Galli²  Sungmin O³ 

[1] Department of Climate and Energy Systems Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul 03760, Korea;Department of Physics and NatRisk Center, University of Torino “Alma Universitas Taurinorum”, 10125 Torino, Italy;Institute for Geophysics, Astrophysics, and Meteorology, University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria;

关键词: climate change;    land surface model;    surface energy budget;    soil temperature;    heat flux;    snowmelt;   

DOI  :  10.3390/w10070954

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This study investigates the potential changes in surface energy budget components under certain future climate conditions over the Alps and Northern Italy. The regional climate scenarios are obtained though the Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3) runs, based on a reference climate (1961–1990) and the future climate (2071–2100) via the A2 and B2 scenarios. The energy budget components are calculated by employing the University of Torino model of land Processes Interaction with Atmosphere (UTOPIA), and using the RegCM3 outputs as input data. Our results depict a significant change in the energy budget components during springtime over high-mountain areas, whereas the most relevant difference over the plain areas is the increase in latent heat flux and hence, evapotranspiration during summertime. The precedence of snow-melting season over the Alps is evidenced by the earlier increase in sensible heat flux. The annual mean number of warm and cold days is evaluated by analyzing the top-layer soil temperature and shows a large increment (slight reduction) of warm (cold) days. These changes at the end of this century could influence the regional radiative properties and energy cycles and thus, exert significant impacts on human life and general infrastructures.

【 授权许可】

Unknown