class project report for 2008 Spring EAS8803 special topics on numerical modeling and computer programming in geosciences

Solving Soil Temperature Profile from Discretized Diffusion Equation

Xin Xi School of Earth and Atmospheric Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia, USA

Abstract
In most land surface parameterization schemes, the soil temperature is solved from the diffusion equation. In the NOAH land model, the diffusion equation is discretized over 4 soil layers and the soil temperature is predicted using the Crank-Nicholson method. Forced by solar heating, a perturbation in the surface temperature induces the time evolution of the soil temperature profile. Different types of soil may reach steady state at different manner depending on their thermodynamic properties, including heat capacity and thermal conductivity, which are determined by the soil texture and moisture. In this study, sand and clay are adopted as two contrasting soil types to show how soil texture affects the temperature evolution under a certain surface temperature perturbation. The effect of soil moisture is also addressed. The numerical simulation shows that, with a given perturbation in the surface temperature, sand can more effectively conduct heat downward and reach the steady state earlier in wet condition than in dry condition. With the same water content, sand has comparable volumetric heat capacity with clay, but its thermal conductivity is much higher, which enables sand to be effective conductor and to get to equilibrium faster. The steady state displays a linear distribution of temperature from the surface to the bottom, which is consistent with the analytic solution.

1. Introduction
Soil temperature is an important surface state variable which determines various biological and chemical processes (e.g., evaportranspiration and microbial respiration, etc) within the soil and the interaction between the land surface and overlying atmosphere (e.g., boundary layer growth, cloud formation and precipitation, etc). Solar radiation act as the heat source for the surface, of which the spatial and temporal changes can cause corresponding heterogeneities of soil temperature with depth. The spatial heterogeneity of soil type and soil moisture condition is also a determinant in predicting the soil temperature change under a certain external forcing. In most land surface schemes, the soil thermodynamics component calculate the soil vertical temperature profile based on the discretized one-dimensional diffusion equation. Here the stateof-the-art NOAH land scheme is used as an example (Pan and Mahrt, 1987; Chen et al., 2001).

2. Mathematical Model
The first law of heat conduction, also known as Fouriers law, states that the time tendency of heat transfer through a material is proportional to the negative gradient of temperature, which has the following form:

q = K T

(2.1)

class project report for 2008 Spring EAS8803 special topics on numerical modeling and computer programming in geosciences where q [Wm-2] is the heat flux, or the amount of heat conducted across a unit cross-sectional area in unit time; K [Wm-1K-1] is thermal conductivity and T [Km-1] is the spatial gradient of temperature. Neglecting the horizontal interactions yields the vertical one-dimensional form

qz = K z

T z

(2.2)

where z [m] is in the vertical direction and is positive downward, and qz is positive downward. To account for non-steady or transient conditions, the principle of energy conservation in the form of continuity equation is invoked as

T q = z t z

(2.3)

where C [Jm-3K-1] is the volumetric soil heat capacity and t [s] is the time. Combining equation (2.2) and (2.3) yields the second law of heat conduction, or diffusion equation in onedimensional form (Pan and Mahrt, 1987; Chen et al., 2001):

C ()
where the volumetric heat capacity,

T T = t ( ) t z z

(2.4)

and the thermal conductivity, K t ( ) , are formulated as functions of the volumetric soil water content, , which is defined as the fraction of unit soil volume occupied by water. The volumetric heat capacity C is calculated as a linear sum of the respective volumetric heat capacities of soil ( 1.26 106 Jm 3 K 1 ), water ( 4.2 106 Jm3 K 1 ) and air ( 1004Jm 3 K 1 ), weighted by the volumetric soil water content, that is,
C ( ) = Cwater + (1 s ) Csoil + ( s ) Cair

C () ,

(2.5)

The thermal conductivity K strongly depends on the soil water content, and has the functional form as follows.
420 exp[ ( 2.7 + Pf )] Pf 5.1 Kt ( ) = Pf > 5.1 0.1774

(2.6)

Pf = log s ( s ) . Here, s and s are the maximum soil moisture (porosity) and saturated
b

soil potential (suction), respectively, and both depend on the soil texture (Cosby et al., 1984).

3. Numerical Model
With the sun as a periodic heat source for the soil, the top thin layer responds faster with the diurnal cycle while the deeper layer controls the seasonal changes [Deardorff 1977, 1978]. In order for the soil model to capture the daily, weekly and seasonal cycle of soil moisture, and also to mitigate the possible truncation error in discretization, the NOAH land model adopts 4 soil layers, and the thickness of each layer from the ground surface to the bottom are 0.1, 0.3, 0.6 and 1.0 m, respectively. The total soil depth is 2 m, with the root zone in the upper 1 m of soil. See Fig.1 for the soil vertical structure.

class project report for 2008 Spring EAS8803 special topics on numerical modeling and computer programming in geosciences
To simplify the problem, the heat capacity Ci and thermal conductivity Ki at i-th soil layer is assumed to be constant with time, and only determined by prescribed initial soil moisture. To show how soil temperature evolves with time depending on the soil moisture and soil types, two pair-case simulations are designed for comparison. The heat capacity and thermal conductivity of each layer for the two cases are given in Table 1. These values are calculated from equation (2.5) and (2.6), given the prescribed volumetric soil water content for each layer i (Table 1) and parameters (Table 2) from Cosby et al., (1984). From Table 1, one can find that wet sand has larger heat capacity and thermal conductivity than dry sand, and at the same soil moisture condition, sand has larger heat capacity and thermal conductivity than clay. For i-th layer, equation (2.4) adopts the discrete form Ti Ti = i t z z

Ci

(3.1)

The soil temperature for i-th layer Ti represents the layer-averaged value, here assumed to be the mid-point value at each layer. The prediction of Ti is performed using the Crank-Nicholson scheme. The temperature at the lower boundary, assumed to be 3 m below the ground surface, is specified by the annual mean surface air temperature at 2 m, considering that the observed soil temperature at this depth is not available. The upper boundary condition or surface skin is temperature is determined from the surface energy balance equation. Here we consider how the initial soil temperature profile evolves in response to a prescribed perturbation in the surface skin temperature. Table 1. Simulation scenarios and values of Ci and Ki for each case. Case A sand (dry) z1 i z2 z3 z4 z1 0.13 0.13 0.12 0.11 1.379 1.379 1.337 1.295 28.221 28.221 25.612 23.049 sand (wet) 0.31 0.31 0.29 0.28 2.135 2.135 2.051 2.009 80.887 80.887 74.607 71.502 sand 0.26 0.26 0.24 0.21 1.925 1.925 1.841 1.715 65.361 65.361 59.319 50.458 Case B clay 0.26 0.26 0.24 0.21 1.763 1.763 1.679 1.553 2.058 2.058 1.377 0.705

Ci
(10 Jm K )
6 -3 -1

z2 z3 z4 z1

Ki
(Wm-1K-1)

z2 z3 z4

class project report for 2008 Spring EAS8803 special topics on numerical modeling and computer programming in geosciences
Table 2. Parameters used in calculating Ci and Ki, from Cosby et al., 1984. s (m3m-3) sand clay 0.339 0.468 s (m) 0.069 0.468 b 2.79 11.55

To avoid the numerical instability of explicit scheme and the computational intensity of implicit scheme, the Crank-Nicholson method involves weighted contributions of the current and previous time steps in calculating the current time value, with second-order accuracy in time and space. Equation (3.1) is discretized for all the layers:
T n +1 Ts Tzn +1 Tzn T n +1 Tzn +1 1 1 1 1 = K z1 z1 K z1 z 2 t z1 2C z1z1 0.5z1 T n T T n T n + K z1 z 2 z 1 K z1 z1 s z1 0.5z1

(3.2a)

+1 Tzin +1 Tzin T n +1 T n +1 T n +1 Tzin1 T n T n T n Tzin1 1 = + K zi zi +1 zi K zi 1 zi K zi zi +1 zi K zi 1 zi t zi zi 1 z i zi 1 2Czi zi

(3.2b)

T T n +1 T n +1 Tzn +1 T T n T n T n 1 Tzn4+1 Tzn4 3 K z 4 b z4 K z3 z 4 = + K z 4 b z 4 K z3 z 4 z3 2Cz 4 z4 0.5z4 0.5z4 t z3 z3 where zi =

(3.2c)

(z + z )K K zi + zi +1 ; K zi = i i +1 zi zi +1 is the thermal conductivity at the interface of zi K zi +1 + zi +1 K zi 2 each two layers. Ts and Tb is the upper and lower boundary temperature, respectively.

Then, the soil temperature at each layer at current time step can be expressed as the summed contributions of neighbor layers at current and previous time steps, and of the layer itself at previous time step. Taking 2-th layer for example, we have

ATzn2+1 = A2Tzn +1 + A3Tzn +1 + A4Tzn + A5Tzn2 + A6Tzn 1 1 3 1 3

where
A1 = 1 +

(3.3)

K z1 t K z 2 K z 1 t + ; A2 = A4 = 2Cz 2 z2 z1 2Cz 2 z2 z2 z1 Kz2 t t K z 2 K z1 ; A5 = 1 + 2Cz 2 z2 z2 2Cz 2 z2 z2 z1

A3 = A6 =

4. Coding
To show more details of the evolution of vertical temperature profile with time, the number of soil layer is set to be 20, each with a depth of 0.1 m. The initial temperature profile is set to be uniform at freezing point (273 K). A perturbation in surface temperature due to solar heating would induce the whole soil layer to warm up, reaching a final steady state. The bottom layer is assumed to be not affected by external forcing, and the temperature doesnt change.

class project report for 2008 Spring EAS8803 special topics on numerical modeling and computer programming in geosciences The main program conduction.f calls exterior subroutines to set up vertical soil structure (spacing.f), initialize temperature profile (initialtemp.f), input conductivity (conductivity.f) and heat capacity (heatcapacity.f) for each soil layer. Based on the Crank-Nicholson scheme, the coefficients for equation (3.3) are calculated in cvequation.f and input to thomas.f to calculate soil temperature at each time step for each layer in a loop using the Thomas method. z0=0 m, surface z1 z2 z1 =0.2m z2 =0.45m z3 z3 =0.8m z4 z4=1.0 m z3=0.6 m z3=1.0 m z1=0.1m z1=0.1 m z2=0.3 m z2=0.4 m

z4=2.0 m, bottom Figure 1. Schematic of soil vertical profile

5. Results
Figure 2 shows the time evolution of the soil temperature profile for dry sand. It can be seen that, with the surface temperature set as 288k, the heat is gradually conducted downward into deep soil layers. The soil temperature at deep layer increases with time, in response to the perturbation at the surface due to a certain external forcing. With enough time (about 50,000 seconds), the soil temperature profile reaches a steady state, which displays as a linear distribution of temperature between the surface and the bottom. This result is consistent with the analytic solution of the diffuse equation. Figure 3 shows the contrasting time evolution of soil temperature for dry and wet sand. Wet soil has much larger thermal conductivity than dry soil, which can be seen from Table 1. Also, the ratio of thermal conductivity to heat capacity (Ki/Ci) is larger for wet soil and dry soil. That is to say, the large difference in thermal conductivity determines how the temperature evolves during the time. The figure tells us that wet soil can more effectively conduct the heat downward into deep soil layers and thus reaches the steady state earlier than dry soil. Figure 4 is the same as Fig.3, but for sand and clay with the same water content. So the difference in the temperature evolution is contributable to only the soil types, which determines the maximum water content (porosity) and saturated soil potential, and thus the heat capacity and thermal conductivity. For the sand and clay with same soil water content, they have

class project report for 2008 Spring EAS8803 special topics on numerical modeling and computer programming in geosciences comparable volumetric heat capacities (Table 1). However, the sand has a much larger (by one order of magnitude) thermal conductivity than clay, which enable the sand to reach steady state much earlier (about 40,000 seconds), while it takes 800,000 seconds for the clay to get to equilibrium temperature distribution.
288 2,000s 5,000s 10,000s 40,000s 50,000s 100,000s

286

284

temperature

282

280

278

276

274 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 vertical depth 1.4 1.6 1.8 2

Figure 2. Temperature evolution for dry sand

288 286 284 282 280 278 276 274 272

temperature (K)

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1 1.2 vertical depth

1.4

1.6

1.8

Figure 3. Temperature evolution for dry (dotted) and wet (solid) sand; with same time points as Fig.2

class project report for 2008 Spring EAS8803 special topics on numerical modeling and computer programming in geosciences
288 sand; 5,000s clay; 5,000s sand; 10,000s clay; 10,000s sand; 40,000s clay; 40,000s clay; 100,000s clay; 500,000s clay; 800,000s

286

284

temperature

282

280

278

276

274 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 vertical depth 1.4 1.6 1.8 2

Figure 4. Temperature evolution of sand (dotted) and clay (solid)

6. Conclusion and Discussion

In the NOAH land surface parameterization scheme, the soil temperature is solved by discretizing the heat diffusion partial differential equation over 4 soil layers, following the Crank-Nicholson method. The soil moisture and texture can affect the thermodynamic properties of soils and thus the response of soil temperature profile to external forcing. From the simulation of the time evolution of the vertical soil temperature profile in response to a prescribed perturbation in surface temperature, its found that wet sand is able to conduct heat downward into deep soils more effectively than dry sand, and thus reaches the steady state earlier. Besides, at the same soil moisture condition, sand has larger thermal conductivity by an order of magnitude than clay, which enables it to get to equilibrium much earlier than clay. The steady state is a linear temperature distribution between the surface and bottom, which is consistent with the analytic solution of the diffuse equation without source or sink term. This study is a simple demonstration to show how soil temperature is solved in most land surface parameterization schemes, which account for the role of land surface and boundary layer in climate studies. As mentioned above, the surface temperature is determined by the surface energy balance equation, as the upper boundary condition. The ground heat flux is the driver for the evolution of the deep soil temperature, which is generated from the periodic solar heating. Besides, the soil moisture and its distribution among the vertical layers are variable due to the precipitation, infiltration, evaporation and transpiration processes, etc. The soil texture and composition is also subject to change from plant growth, micro-organism activities and human disturbances, etc. All these processes or factors affect the soil thermodynamic properties, and thus the evolution of soil temperature profile, and need to be considered through realistic simulations.

class project report for 2008 Spring EAS8803 special topics on numerical modeling and computer programming in geosciences

Reference
Chen, F., and J. Dudhia, 2001: Coupling an Advanced Land SurfaceHydrology Model with the Penn StateNCAR MM5 Modeling System. Part I: Model Implementation and Sensitivity. Mon. Wea. Rev., 129, 569585. Cosby, B. J., G. M. Hornberger, R. B. Clapp, and T. R. Ginn, 1984: A statistical exploration of the relationships of soil moisture characteristics to the physical properties of soils. Water Resour. Res., 20, 682690. Deardorff, J. W., 1977: Parameterization of ground surface moisture content for use in atmospheric prediction models, J. Appl. Meteor., 16 (11), 1182-1185. Deardorff, J. W., 1978: Efficient prediction of ground surface temperature and moisture, with inclusion of a layer of vegetation, J. Geophys. Res., 83, 1889-1903. Pan, H.-L. and L. Mahrt, 1987: Interaction between soil hydrology and boundary-layer development. Bound.-Layer Meteorol., 38, 185-202.

Appendix