Treatment of Undercanopy Turbulence in Land Models

In arid and semiarid regions most of the solar radiation penetrates through the canopy and reaches the ground, and hence the turbulent exchange coefficient under canopyCs becomes important. The use of a constantCs that is only appropriate for thick canopies is found to be primarily responsible for the excessive warm bias of around 10 K in monthly mean ground temperature over these regions in version 2 of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM2). NewCs formulations are developed for the consistent treatment of undercanopy turbulence for both thick and thin canopies in land models, and provide a preliminary solution of this problem.