Land-air interaction over arid/semi-arid areas in China and its impact on the east Asian summer monsoon. Part I: Calibration of the land surface model (BATS) using multicriteria methods

To improve the land surface simulation in the arid and semi-arid areas of northern China, the observational data from two field experiments in Dunhuang and Tongyu are used to optimize the parameters in the land surface model, BATS, through calibration with the multicriteria method. Sensitivity analysis to the parameters in Dunhuang and Tongyu indicates that different parameters need to be calibrated in two sites with different environmental and climate regimes. Comparison of observed sensible heat flux, latent heat flux, and ground surface temperature with the simulated ones shows the simulations with the optimized parameters have been substantially improved. Especially, the holistic simulations with the calibration of the parameter values are much closer to the observations in the arid region (Dunhuang), and the energy partition with the calibrated parameters can also be simulated well in the semi-arid region (Tongyu). Whole results demonstrate that the parameter calibration of the land surface model is important when the model is to be used to investigate the land-air interaction.