Abstract The Global Environmental Multiscale Model (GEM) is currently in operational use for data assimilation and forecasting at 25–15 km scales; regional 10 km scales over North America; and 2.5 km scales over Canada. To evaluate the GEM model for forecasting applications in Iran, global daily temperature and precipitation outputs of GEM at a 25 km scale were compared to data sets from hydrometeorological stations and the De Martonne climate classification method was used to demarcate climate zones for comparisons. GEM model outputs were compared to observations in each of these zones. The results show good agreement between GEM outputs and measured daily temperatures with Kling‐Gupta efficiencies of 0.76 for the arid, 0.71 for the semiarid, and 0.78 for the humid regions. There is also an agreement between GEM outputs and measured annual precipitation with differences of 50% for the arid, 36% for the semiarid, and 15% for the humid region. There is a ~13% systematic difference between the elevation of stations and the average elevation of corresponding GEM grid cells; differences in elevation associated with forcing data sets can be potentially corrected using environmental lapse rates. Compared with hydrometeorological data sets, the GEM model precipitation outputs are less accurate than temperature outputs, and this may influence the accuracy of potential Iranian forecasting operations utilizing GEM. The results of this study provide an understanding of the operation and limitations of the GEM model for climate change and hydro‐climatological studies.

Abstract. A sensor comprised of an electronic circuit and a hybrid single and dual heat pulse probe was constructed and tested along with a novel signal processing procedure to determine changes in the effective dual-probe spacing radius over the time of measurement. The circuit utilized a proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller to control heat inputs into the soil medium in lieu of a variable resistor. The system was designed for onboard signal processing and implemented USB, RS-232, and SDI-12 interfaces for machine-to-machine (M2M) exchange of data, thereby enabling heat inputs to be adjusted to soil conditions and data availability shortly after the time of experiment. Signal processing was introduced to provide a simplified single-probe model to determine thermal conductivity instead of reliance on late-time logarithmic curve fitting. Homomorphic and derivative filters were used with a dual-probe model to detect changes in the effective probe spacing radius over the time of experiment to compensate for physical changes in radius as well as model and experimental error. Theoretical constraints were developed for an efficient inverse of the exponential integral on an embedded system. Application of the signal processing to experiments on sand and peat improved the estimates of soil water content and bulk density compared to methods of curve fitting nominally used for heat pulse probe experiments. Applications of the technology may be especially useful for soil and environmental conditions under which effective changes in probe spacing radius need to be detected and compensated for over the time of experiment.

Abstract Forest clearings are common features of evergreen forests and produce snowpack accumulation and melt differing from that in adjacent forests and open terrain. This study has investigated the challenges in specifying the turbulent fluxes of sensible and latent heat to snowpacks in forest clearings. The snowpack in two forest clearings in the Canadian Rockies was simulated using a one-dimensional (1D) snowpack model. A trade-off was found between optimizing against measured snow surface temperature or snowmelt when choosing how to specify the turbulent fluxes. Schemes using the Monin–Obukhov similarity theory tended to produce negatively biased surface temperature, while schemes that enhanced turbulent fluxes, to reduce the surface temperature bias, resulted in too much melt. Uncertainty estimates from Monte Carlo experiments showed that no realistic parameter set could successfully remove biases in both surface temperature and melt. A simple scheme that excludes atmospheric stability correction was required to successfully simulate surface temperature under low wind speed conditions. Nonturbulent advective fluxes and/or nonlocal sources of turbulence are thought to account for the maintenance of heat exchange in low-wind conditions. The simulation of snowmelt was improved by allowing enhanced latent heat fluxes during low-wind conditions. Caution is warranted when snowpack models are optimized on surface temperature, as model tuning may compensate for deficiencies in conceptual and numerical models of radiative, conductive, and turbulent heat exchange at the snow surface and within the snowpack. Such model tuning could have large impacts on the melt rate and timing of the snow-free transition in simulations of forest clearings within hydrological and meteorological models.