SURFEX simulates Earth

A modeling system called SURFEX was developed to describe the behavior of different landscape types of the Earth. The main responsibility of the FMI in the project is a boreal landscape with snow and lakes.

Modelling system simulates the earth and describes interactions between the Earth's surface and atmosphere as well as processes in the upper-most layer of the surface. The system may be included into an atmospheric model for the weather forecasting and for the climate change studies. It may be also used off-line from point scale to global runs, for a wide range of applications, from hydrological to surface monitoring.

The model includes different kinds of vegetated areas, such as forests and crops, deserts and mountains, glaciers, urban areas, seas and lakes including ice. Snow cover is also considered, for each type of the landscape. It considers the heat and moisture exchange, as well as carbon dioxide, chemical species, continental aerosols and sea salt.

The model includes strong hydrological component, simulating the surface and in-soil runoff, interactions between water table and root zone, flooded areas and routing the water to the ocean. It uses global maps with the resolution starting from 1 kilometer, distinguishing over 250 landscape types and providing information about different vegetation parameters, topography, soil texture and depth of lakes. It may assimilate different kinds of observations, such as snow depth, air temperature and humidity observations from meteorological stations and soil moisture observations from satellites.

The system was developed by a wide scientific community leading by Meteo France. The development started nearly 10 years ago. Now we make an overview and summarize the results.

More information:

Researcher Ekaterina Kurzeneva, Ekaterina.Kurzeneva@fmi.fi

Masson, V., P. Le Moigne, E. Martin, S. Faroux, A. Allas, R. Alkama, S. Belamari, A. Barbu, A. Boone, F. Bouyssel, P. Brousseau, E. Brun, J.-C. Calvet, D. Carrer, B. Decharme, C. Delire, S. Donier, K. Essaouini, A.-L. Gibelin, H. Giordani, F. Habets, M. Jidane, G. Kerdraon, E. Kourzeneva, M. Lafaysse, S. Lafont, C. Lebeaupin Brossier, A. Lemonsu, J.-F. Mahfouf, P. Marguinaud, M. Mokhtari, S. Morin, G. Pigeon, R. Salgado, Y. Seity, F. Taillefer, G. Tanguy, P. Tulet, B. Vincendon, V. Vionnet and A. Voldoire, 2012: The SURFEX7.2 land and ocean surface platform for coulpled offline simulation of Eath surface variables and fluxes. Geoscientific Model Development, 5, 3771-3851, doi:10.5194/gmdd-5-3771-2012.