quick question about the total land area in CLM

[fenghe@wisc_edu]

Hi CLM users,

I'm puzzled by the total land area in CLM, which is 167 million km[SUP]2[/SUP], and over 10% more than the true value (150 million km[SUP]2[/SUP]).

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/DanielChen.shtml

I attached the variable "area" in CCSM4 CLM below.

To unzip:
mv area.nc.zip area.nc.gz
gunzip area.nc.gz

Here is the ncl script to get the total area:

begin
f = addfile("area.nc","r")
d = f->area
print(sum(d))
end


Any thoughts?
Thank you for your attention.

 

[slevis]

You did not multiply the area by the land fraction as far as I can tell.

Sam Levis

 

[fenghe@wisc_edu]

Dear Sam,

Thank you very much!

After I do print(landfrac*area), it gives the correct answer 149 million square km.