Numerical simulations of the atmospheric and land conditions over the Jinta oasis in northwestern China with satellite-derived land surface parameters

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research. D. Atmospheres 2009-03, Vol.114 (D6), p.n/a
• Main Authors: Meng, Xianhong, Lü, Shihua, Zhang, Tangtang, Guo, Jüxin, Gao, Yanhong, Bao, Yan, Wen, Lijuan, Luo, Siqiong, Liu, Yuanpu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; numeric simulation; oasis-desert; satellite-derived parameters
• ISSN: 0148-0227; 2156-2202
• DOI: 10.1029/2008JD010360

Mesoscale meteorological modeling is an important tool to help understand the energy budget of the oasis, while some of its initial field data are rough limited to describe the atmosphere and land conditions over a small oasis. Local factors including land surface parameters and their interaction with the atmosphere play a dominant role in the local circulation. Therefore, in this study, land surface parameters such as land‐use types, vegetation cover fraction, and surface layer soil moisture are derived by satellite remote sensing data from EOS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (EOS/MODIS), and soil moisture at 10 cm and 200 cm depth are obtained by combining surface layer soil moisture with experiential statistics. Then the parameters are used to specify the respective options in the MM5 model. Comparison with the observations shows that the modeling including satellite values leads to improved meteorological simulations in the Jinta oasis, both for the oasis effect and the local wind circulation, especially for description of the inhomogeneous characteristics over the oasis. Replacing values in the initial field with data obtained from remote sensing removes the number of unknowns in the model and increases the accuracy of the energy budget. This work is a very valuable addition to current numerical research on local circumfluence over the oasis areas.