Sensitivity Study of Four Land Surface Schemes in the WRF Model

Table 1

Comparison of the STD, Noah, RUC, and CLM3 land surface schemes in WRF.

	Vegetation	Soil	Snow	Lake	River routing
STD	N/A	5 layer temperatures, but no moisture and frozen soil	N/A	N/A	N/A
Noah	One vegetation type in one grid cell without dynamic vegetation and carbon budget	4 layer temperatures and moistures and frozen soil	1 layer snow lumped with the top soil layer No liquid water fixed snow density	N/A	N/A
RUC	One vegetation type in one grid cell without dynamic vegetation and carbon budget	6 layer temperatures and moistures and frozen soil	2 layer snow No liquid water Fixed snow density	N/A	N/A
CLM3	Subgrids with up to 10 vegetation types in one grid cell with dynamic vegetation and carbon budget	10-layer temperatures and moistures and frozen soil	5 layer snow with liquid water Variable snow density	10 layer lake with lake ice and snow included	A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to calculate water flow directions