atmosphere Article Impact of Environmental Conditions on Grass Phenology in the Regional Climate Model COSMO-CLM Eva Hartmann 1,* , Jan-Peter Schulz 2, Ruben Seibert 3 , Marius Schmidt 4 , Mingyue Zhang 1, Jürg Luterbacher 1,5,6 and Merja H. Tölle 1,7 1 Department of Geography, Climatology, Climate Dynamics and Climate Change, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, D-35390 Giessen, Germany;
[email protected] (M.Z.);
[email protected] or
[email protected] (J.L.);
[email protected] (M.H.T.) 2 Deutscher Wetterdienst DWD (German Meteorological Service), D-63067 Offenbach, Germany;
[email protected] 3 Department of Biology, Plant Ecology, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, D-35390 Giessen, Germany;
[email protected] 4 Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, Agrosphere (IBG-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany;
[email protected] 5 Science and Innovation Department, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland 6 Center of International Development and Environmental Research, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, D-35390 Giessen, Germany 7 Center of Environmental Systems Research (CESR), University of Kassel, D-34117 Kassel, Germany * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 13 November 2020; Accepted: 10 December 2020; Published: 16 December 2020 Abstract: Feedbacks of plant phenology to the regional climate system affect fluxes of energy, water, CO2, biogenic volatile organic compounds as well as canopy conductance, surface roughness length, and are influencing the seasonality of albedo. We performed simulations with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM (CCLM) at three locations in Germany covering the period 1999 to 2015 in order to study the sensitivity of grass phenology to different environmental conditions by implementing a new phenology module.