Status: this discussion paper is a preprint. It has been under review for the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS). The manuscript was not accepted for further review after discussion.
The influence of albedo parameterization for improved lake ice simulation
Alexis L. Robinson,Sarah S. Ariano,and Laura C. Brown
Abstract. Lake ice models can be used to study the latitudinal differences of current and projected changes in ice covered lakes under a changing climate. The Canadian Lake Ice Model (CLIMo) is a one-dimensional freshwater ice cover model that simulates Arctic and sub-Arctic lake ice cover well. Modelling ice cover in temperate regions has presented challenges due to the differences in composition between northern and temperate ice. This study presents a comparison of measured and modelled ice regimes, with a focus on refining CLIMo for temperate regions. The study sites include two temperate region lakes (MacDonald Lake and Clear Lake, Central Ontario) and two High Arctic lakes (Resolute Lake and Small Lake, Nunavut) where climate and ice cover information have been recorded over three seasons. The ice cover simulations were validated with a combination of time lapse imagery, field measurements of snow depth, snow density, ice thickness and albedo data, and historical ice records from the Canadian Ice Database (for Resolute Lake). Simulations of the High Arctic ice cover show good agreement with previous studies for ice-on and ice-off dates (MAE 6 to 8 days). Unadjusted simulations for the temperate region lakes show both an underestimation in ice thickness (~ 4 to 18 cm) and ice-off timing (~ 25 to 30 days). Field measurements were used to adjust the albedo parameterization used in CLIMo, which resulted in improvements to both simulated ice thickness, within 0.1 cm to 10 cm of manual measurements, and ice-off timing, within 1 to 7 days of observations. These findings suggest regionally specific measurements of albedo can improve the accuracy of lake ice simulations.
These results further our knowledge regarding of the response of temperate and High Arctic lake ice regimes to climate conditions.
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We present a comparison of measured and modelled ice phenology for High Arctic and temperate latitudes. Our findings show the importance of regionally specific snow and ice albedo parameterization is critical to the simulation of ice cover due to the impacts of albedo on ice thickness, melt and ice-off dates. Field measured temperate region snow and ice albedo resulted in improvements to modelled ice thickness (~ 0.1–10 cm of field data) and improved the modelled ice-off timing to 1 to 7 days.
We present a comparison of measured and modelled ice phenology for High Arctic and temperate...
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