Hello,
I am scoping what it would take to represent vertical land motion in CTSM, meaning land surface elevation changes driven by processes such as GIA, elastic deformation, poroelastic deformation, and/or sediment compaction. These rates can range from a few mm/yr to cm/yr in many coastal and urban regions, such that the cumulative elevation change is not negligible over a century-scale projection.
I am trying to understand how CTSM currently represents and uses land surface elevation. For representing dynamic elevation changes, there are two routes I can see. The first would be to compute the deformation field externally and impose it, so that the model reads a yearly deformation field and uses it to modify land elevation. The second would be to parameterize the problem internally. For example, since the elastic response to terrestrial water loading is a function of a water-storage field that the land model already carries, this response could in principle be computed internally and used to modify the elevation.
For the first route, is there existing infrastructure that could carry a prescribed time-varying VLM field, for instance the stream-file machinery used for other transient surface properties, or perhaps an existing elevation-class or topography pathway that could be adapted for this purpose? For the second, is there any precedent for a surface property that responds to the model's own hydrology in this way, and would the model remain stable if elevation were updated during a simulation? I would also like to know whether anyone in the community has worked on a deformable land surface.
Thanks for your help!
I am scoping what it would take to represent vertical land motion in CTSM, meaning land surface elevation changes driven by processes such as GIA, elastic deformation, poroelastic deformation, and/or sediment compaction. These rates can range from a few mm/yr to cm/yr in many coastal and urban regions, such that the cumulative elevation change is not negligible over a century-scale projection.
I am trying to understand how CTSM currently represents and uses land surface elevation. For representing dynamic elevation changes, there are two routes I can see. The first would be to compute the deformation field externally and impose it, so that the model reads a yearly deformation field and uses it to modify land elevation. The second would be to parameterize the problem internally. For example, since the elastic response to terrestrial water loading is a function of a water-storage field that the land model already carries, this response could in principle be computed internally and used to modify the elevation.
For the first route, is there existing infrastructure that could carry a prescribed time-varying VLM field, for instance the stream-file machinery used for other transient surface properties, or perhaps an existing elevation-class or topography pathway that could be adapted for this purpose? For the second, is there any precedent for a surface property that responds to the model's own hydrology in this way, and would the model remain stable if elevation were updated during a simulation? I would also like to know whether anyone in the community has worked on a deformable land surface.
Thanks for your help!
