Multi-objective calibration of the land surface scheme TERRA/LM using LITFASS-2003 data

Abstract. The turbulent sensible and latent heat fluxes simulated in the operational weather forecast model LM have been checked with data from the field experiment LITFASS 2003 (Lindenberg Inhomogeneous Terrain - Fluxes between Atmosphere and Surface: a Long-term Study) using both single site measurements and grid box aggregated fluxes. SCE-UA (single objective) and MOSCEM-UA (multi-objective) approaches were applied to calibrate the land-surface scheme TERRA/LM for 11 single sites and for the aggregated fluxes. A large variation is seen among the parameter sets found by calibration but no typical classification according to vegetation type is obvious. This is attributed to the calibrated parameter sets correcting for model deficiencies and data errors rather than describing the physical characteristics of the measurement site. The measured fluxes were combined into a time series of aggregated fluxes by the tile method. Calibration of TERRA/LM with respect to the averaged fluxes resulted in a range of parameter sets which all simulated the area-averaged fluxes in much better agreement with the observed fluxes than the standard parameter set of the operational model. A modified Nash-Sutcliffe measure as a coincidence criterion fell from 0.3 to a range between 0.15 and 0.28 for the latent heat flux and from 0.43 to between 0.26 and 0.36 for the sensible heat flux when the calibrated parameter sets were used instead of the standard parameters.