Analysis of Different Freezing/Thawing Parameterizations using the UTOPIA Model

Soil moisture changes are generally due to external factors (precipitation, evaporation, etc.) and internal forces (gravitational force, capillarity, transpiration, etc.). When soil temperatures remain below 0 °C for a long time (hours or even entire consecutive days), part of the liquid water content of the soil can freeze, thus freezing/thawing effects must be taken into account in those conditions. The present work is devoted to the numerical modeling of the water phase change in the soil. The model used in this study for the land surface processes is UTOPIA (University of TOrino land Process Interaction in Atmosphere) model, which is the updated version of LSPM (Land Surface Process Model). Scientific literature proposes some formulations to account for freezing/thawing processes. Three different parameterizations have been compared using a synthetic dataset in order to assess which one performs best from a physical point of view. Parameterizing freezing/thawing processes creates numerical instability and water overproduction in the UTOPIA model. These problems have been solved and described in the paper by means of synthetic data created to test the new parameterizations. The results show that UTOPIA is able to capture the freezing/thawing physical processes.