CESM2 River Runoff Model

Introduction

The Model for Scale Adaptive River Transport (MOSART) is the default river model for CESM2 and CLM5. MOSART replaces the River Transport Model (RTM) used in previous versions of CESM and CLM.

MOSART is a river water transport model designed for applications across local, regional and global scales. A major purpose of MOSART is to provide freshwater input for the ocean model in CESM. MOSART also provides an effective way of evaluating and diagnosing the soil hydrology simulated by land surface models through direction comparison of the simulated river flow with observations of natural streamflow at gauging stations. Moreover, MOSART provides a modeling framework for representing riverine transport and transformation of energy and biogeochemical fluxes under both natural and human-influenced conditions.