Calibration and validation of SiBcrop Model for simulating LAI and surface heat fluxes of winter wheat in the North China Plain

The accurate representation of surface characteristic is an important process to simulate surface energy and water flux in land-atmosphere boundary layer. Coupling crop growth model in land surface model is an important method to accurately express the surface characteristics and biophysical processes in farmland. However, the previous work mainly focused on crops in single cropping system, less work was done in multiple cropping systems. This article described how to modify the sub-model in the SiBcrop to realize the accuracy simulation of leaf area index (LAI), latent heat flux (LHF) and sensible heat flux (SHF) of winter wheat growing in double cropping system in the North China Plain (NCP). The seeding date of winter wheat was firstly reset according to the actual growing environment in the NCP. The phenophases, LAI and heat fluxes in 2004–2006 at Yucheng Station, Shandong Province, China were used to calibrate the model. The validations of LHF and SHF were based on the measurements at Yucheng Station in 2007–2010 and at Guantao Station, Hebei Province, China in 2009–2010. The results showed the significant accuracy of the calibrated model in simulating these variables, with which the R2, root mean square error (RMSE) and index of agreement (IOA) between simulated and observed variables were obviously improved than the original code. The sensitivities of the above variables to seeding date were also displayed to further explain the simulation error of the SiBcrop Model. Overall, the research results indicated the modified SiBcrop Model can be applied to simulate the growth and flux process of winter wheat growing in double cropping system in the NCP.