scholarly journals Influence of Land Cover and Soil Moisture on the Horizontal Distribution of Sensible and Latent Heat Fluxes in Southeast Kansas during IHOP_2002 and CASES-97

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret A. LeMone ◽  
Fei Chen ◽  
Joseph G. Alfieri ◽  
Mukul Tewari ◽  
Bart Geerts ◽  
...  

Abstract Analyses of daytime fair-weather aircraft and surface-flux tower data from the May–June 2002 International H2O Project (IHOP_2002) and the April–May 1997 Cooperative Atmosphere Surface Exchange Study (CASES-97) are used to document the role of vegetation, soil moisture, and terrain in determining the horizontal variability of latent heat LE and sensible heat H along a 46-km flight track in southeast Kansas. Combining the two field experiments clearly reveals the strong influence of vegetation cover, with H maxima over sparse/dormant vegetation, and H minima over green vegetation; and, to a lesser extent, LE maxima over green vegetation, and LE minima over sparse/dormant vegetation. If the small number of cases is producing the correct trend, other effects of vegetation and the impact of soil moisture emerge through examining the slope ΔxyLE/ΔxyH for the best-fit straight line for plots of time-averaged LE as a function of time-averaged H over the area. Based on the surface energy balance, H + LE = Rnet − Gsfc, where Rnet is the net radiation and Gsfc is the flux into the soil; Rnet − Gsfc ∼ constant over the area implies an approximately −1 slope. Right after rainfall, H and LE vary too little horizontally to define a slope. After sufficient drying to produce enough horizontal variation to define a slope, a steep (∼−2) slope emerges. The slope becomes shallower and better defined with time as H and LE horizontal variability increases. Similarly, the slope becomes more negative with moister soils. In addition, the slope can change with time of day due to phase differences in H and LE. These trends are based on land surface model (LSM) runs and observations collected under nearly clear skies; the vegetation is unstressed for the days examined. LSM runs suggest terrain may also play a role, but observational support is weak.

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (13) ◽  
pp. 8375-8387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Chen ◽  
Yanping Li ◽  
Fei Chen ◽  
Alan Barr ◽  
Michael Barlage ◽  
...  

Abstract. A thick top layer of organic matter is a dominant feature in boreal forests and can impact land–atmosphere interactions. In this study, the multi-parameterization version of the Noah land surface model (Noah-MP) was used to investigate the impact of incorporating a forest-floor organic soil layer on the simulated surface energy and water cycle components at the BERMS Old Aspen site (OAS) field station in central Saskatchewan, Canada. Compared to a simulation without an organic soil parameterization (CTL), the Noah-MP simulation with an organic soil (OGN) improved Noah-MP-simulated soil temperature profiles and soil moisture at 40–100 cm, especially the phase and amplitude (Seasonal cycle) of soil temperature below 10 cm. OGN also enhanced the simulation of sensible and latent heat fluxes in spring, especially in wet years, which is mostly related to the timing of spring soil thaw and warming. Simulated top-layer soil moisture is better in OGN than that in CTL. The effects of including an organic soil layer on soil temperature are not uniform throughout the soil depth and are more prominent in summer. For drought years, the OGN simulation substantially modified the partitioning of water between direct soil evaporation and vegetation transpiration. For wet years, the OGN-simulated latent heat fluxes are similar to CTL except for the spring season when OGN produced less evaporation, which was closer to observations. Including organic soil produced more subsurface runoff and resulted in much higher runoff throughout the freezing periods in wet years.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 2493-2510 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aihui Wang ◽  
Xubin Zeng ◽  
Donglin Guo

Abstract Global land surface hydrology and heat fluxes can be estimated by running a land surface model (LSM) driven by the atmospheric forcing dataset. Previous multimodel studies focused on the impact of different LSMs on model results. Here the sensitivity of the Community Land Model, version 4.5 (CLM4.5), results to the atmospheric forcing dataset is documented. Together with the model default global forcing dataset (CRU–NCEP, hereafter CRUNCEP), three newly developed, reanalysis-based, near-surface meteorological datasets (i.e., MERRA, CFSR, and ERA-Interim) with the precipitation adjusted by the Global Precipitation Climatology Project monthly product were used to drive CLM4.5. All four simulations were run at 0.5° × 0.5° grids from 1979 to 2009 with the identical initialization. The simulated monthly surface hydrology variables, fluxes, and the forcing datasets were then evaluated against various observation-based datasets (soil moisture, runoff, snow depth and water equivalent, and flux tower measurements). To partially avoid the mismatch between model gridbox values and point measurements, three approaches were taken. The model simulations based on three newly constructed forcing datasets are overall better than the simulation from CRUNCEP, in particular for soil moisture and snow quantities. The ensemble mean from the CLM4.5 simulations using the four forcing datasets is generally superior to individual simulations, and the ensemble mean latent and sensible heat fluxes over global land (60°S–90°N) are 42.8 and 40.3 W m−2, respectively. The differences in both precipitation and other atmospheric forcing variables (e.g., air temperature and downward solar radiation) contribute to the differences in simulated results. The datasets are available from the authors for further evaluation and for various applications.


Author(s):  
Nemesio Rodriguez-Fernandez ◽  
Patricia de Rosnay ◽  
Clement Albergel ◽  
Philippe Richaume ◽  
Filipe Aires ◽  
...  

The assimilation of Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) data into the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts) H-TESSEL (Hydrology revised - Tiled ECMWF Scheme for Surface Exchanges over Land) model is presented. SMOS soil moisture (SM) estimates have been produced specifically by training a neural network with SMOS brightness temperatures as input and H-TESSEL model SM simulations as reference. This can help the assimilation of SMOS information in several ways: (1) the neural network soil moisture (NNSM) data have a similar climatology to the model, (2) no global bias is present with respect to the model even if regional differences can exist. Experiments performing joint data assimilation (DA) of NNSM, 2 metre air temperature and relative humidity or NNSM-only DA are discussed. The resulting SM was evaluated against a large number of in situ measurements of SM obtaining similar results to those of the model with no assimilation, even if significant differences were found from site to site. In addition, atmospheric forecasts initialized with H-TESSEL runs (without DA) or with the analysed SM were compared to measure of the impact of the satellite information. Although, NNSM DA has an overall neutral impact in the forecast in the Tropics, a significant positive impact was found in other areas and periods, especially in regions with limited in situ information. The joint NNSM, T2m and RH2m DA improves the forecast for all the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere. The impact is mostly due to T2m and RH2m, but SMOS NN DA alone also improves the forecast in July- September. In the Northern Hemisphere, the joint NNSM, T2m and RH2m DA improves the forecast in April-September, while NNSM alone has a significant positive effect in July-September. Furthermore, forecasting skill maps show that SMOS NNSM improves the forecast in North America and in Northern Asia for up to 72 hours lead time.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengyuan Mu ◽  
Martin De Kauwe ◽  
Anna Ukkola ◽  
Andy Pitman ◽  
Teresa Gimeno ◽  
...  

<p>Land surface models underpin coupled climate model projections of droughts and heatwaves. However, the lack of simultaneous observations of individual components of evapotranspiration, concurrent with root-zone soil moisture, has limited previous model evaluations. Here, we use a comprehensive set of observations from a water-limited site in southeastern Australia including both evapotranspiration and soil moisture to a depth of 4.5 m to evaluate the Community Atmosphere-Biosphere Land Exchange (CABLE) land surface model. We demonstrate that alternative process representations within CABLE had the capacity to improve simulated evapotranspiration, but not necessarily soil moisture dynamics - highlighting problems of model evaluations against water fluxes alone. Our best simulation was achieved by resolving a soil evaporation bias; a more realistic initialisation of the groundwater aquifer state; higher vertical soil resolution informed by observed soil properties; and further calibrating soil hydraulic conductivity. Despite these improvements, the role of the empirical soil moisture stress function in influencing the simulated water fluxes remained important: using a site calibrated function reduced the soil water stress on plants by 36 % during drought and 23 % at other times. These changes in CABLE not only improve the seasonal cycle of evapotranspiration, but also affect the latent and sensible heat fluxes during droughts and heatwaves. The range of parameterisations tested led to differences of ~150 W m<sup>-2</sup> in the simulated latent heat flux during a heatwave, implying a strong impact of parameterisations on the capacity for evaporative cooling and feedbacks to the boundary layer (when coupled). Overall, our results highlight the opportunity to advance the capability of land surface models to capture water cycle processes, particularly during meteorological extremes, when sufficient observations of both evapotranspiration fluxes and soil moisture profiles are available.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby N. Carlson ◽  
George Petropoulos

Earth Observation (EO) provides a promising approach towards deriving accurate spatiotemporal estimates of key parameters characterizing land surface interactions, such as latent (LE) and sensible (H) heat fluxes as well as soil moisture content. This paper proposes a very simple method to implement, yet reliable to calculate evapotranspiration fraction (EF) and surface moisture availability (Mo) from remotely sensed imagery of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and surface radiometric temperature (Tir). The method is unique in that it derives all of its information solely from these two images. As such, it does not depend on knowing ancillary surface or atmospheric parameters, nor does it require the use of a land surface model. The procedure for computing spatiotemporal estimates of these important land surface parameters is outlined herein stepwise for practical application by the user. Moreover, as the newly developedscheme is not tied to any particular sensor, it can also beimplemented with technologically advanced EO sensors launched recently or planned to be launched such as Landsat 8 and Sentinel 3. The latter offers a number of key advantages in terms of future implementation of the method and wider use for research and practical applications alike.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Gaona ◽  
Pere Quintana-Seguí ◽  
Maria José Escorihuela

<p>Droughts in the Iberian Peninsula are a natural hazard of great relevance due to their recurrence, severity and impact on multiple environmental and socioeconomic aspects. The Ebro Basin, located in the NE of the Iberian Peninsula, is particularly vulnerable to drought with consequences on agriculture, urban water supply and hydropower. This study, performed within the Project HUMID (CGL2017-85687-R), aims at evaluating the influence of the climatic, land cover and soil characteristics on the interactions between rainfall, evapotranspiration and soil moisture anomalies which define the spatio-temporal drought patterns in the basin.</p><p>The onset, propagation and mitigation of droughts in the Iberian Peninsula is driven by anomalies of rainfall, evapotranspiration and soil moisture, which are related by feedback processes. To test the relative importance of such anomalies, we evaluate the contribution of climatic, land-cover and geologic heterogeneity on the definition of the spatio-temporal patterns of drought. We use the Köppen-Geiger climatic classification to assess how the contrasting climatic types within the basin determine differences on drought behavior. Land-cover types that govern the partition between evaporation and transpiration are also of great interest to discern the influence of vegetation and crop types on the anomalies of evapotranspiration across the distinct regions of the basin (e.g. forested mountains vs. crop-dominated areas). The third physical characteristic whose effect on drought we investigate is the impact of soil properties on soil moisture anomalies.</p><p>The maps and time series used for the spatio-temporal analysis are based on drought indices calculated with high-resolution datasets from remote sensing (MOD16A2ET and SMOS1km) and the land-surface model SURFEX-ISBA. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), the EvapoTranspiration Deficit Index (ETDI) and the Soil Moisture Deficit Index (SMDI) are the three indices chosen to characterize the anomalies of the corresponding rainfall (atmospheric), evapotranspiration (atmosphere-land interface) and soil moisture (land) anomalies (components of the water balance). The comparison of the correlations of the indices (with different time lags) between contrasting regions offers insights about the impact of climate, land-cover and soil properties in the dominance, the timing of the response and memory aspects of the interactions. The high spatial and temporal resolution of remote sensing and land-surface model data allows adopting time and spatial scales suitable to investigate the influence of these physical factors with detail beyond comparison with ground-based datasets.</p><p>The spatial and temporal analysis prove useful to investigate the physical factors of influence on the anomalies between rainfall, evapotranspiration and soil moisture. This approach facilitates the physical interpretation of the anomalies of drought indices aiming to improve the characterization of drought in heterogeneous semi-arid areas like the Ebro River Basin.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Todt ◽  
Pier Luigi Vidale ◽  
Patrick C. McGuire ◽  
Omar V. Müller

<p>Capturing soil moisture-atmosphere feedbacks in a weather or climate model requires realistic simulation of various land surface processes. However, irrigation and other water management methods are still missing in most global climate models today, despite irrigated agriculture being the dominant land use in parts of Asia. In this study, we test the irrigation scheme available in the land model JULES (Joint UK Land Environment Simulator) by running land-only simulations over South and East Asia driven by WFDEI (WATCH Forcing Data ERA-Interim) forcing data. Irrigation in JULES is applied on a daily basis by replenishing soil moisture in the upper soil layers to field capacity, and we use a version of the irrigation scheme that extracts water for irrigation from groundwater and rivers, which physically limits the amount of irrigation that can be applied. We prescribe irrigation for C3 grasses in order to simulate the effects of agriculture, albeit retaining the simpler, widely used 5-PFT (plant functional type) configuration in JULES. Irrigation generally increases soil moisture and evapotranspiration, which results in increasing latent heat fluxes and decreasing sensible heat fluxes. Comparison with combined observational/machine-learning products for turbulent fluxes shows that while irrigation can reduce biases, other biases in JULES, unrelated to irrigation, are larger than improvements due to the inclusion of irrigation. Irrigation also affects water fluxes within the soil, e.g. runoff and drainage into the groundwater level, as well as soil moisture outside of the irrigation season. We find that the irrigation scheme, at least in the uncoupled land-atmosphere setting, can rapidly deplete groundwater to the point that river flow becomes the main source of irrigation (over the North China Plain and the Indus region) and can have the counterintuitive effect of decreasing annual average soil moisture (over the Ganges plain). Subsequently, we will explore the impact of irrigation on regional climate by conducting coupled land-atmosphere simulations.</p>


2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 984-1001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Schwinger ◽  
Stefan J. Kollet ◽  
Charlotte M. Hoppe ◽  
Hendrik Elbern

Author(s):  
Cathy Hohenegger

Even though many features of the vegetation and of the soil moisture distribution over Africa reflect its climatic zones, the land surface has the potential to feed back on the atmosphere and on the climate of Africa. The land surface and the atmosphere communicate via the surface energy budget. A particularly important control of the land surface, besides its control on albedo, is on the partitioning between sensible and latent heat flux. In a soil moisture-limited regime, for instance, an increase in soil moisture leads to an increase in latent heat flux at the expanse of the sensible heat flux. The result is a cooling and a moistening of the planetary boundary layer. On the one hand, this thermodynamically affects the atmosphere by altering the stability and the moisture content of the vertical column. Depending on the initial atmospheric profile, convection may be enhanced or suppressed. On the other hand, a confined perturbation of the surface state also has a dynamical imprint on the atmospheric flow by generating horizontal gradients in temperature and pressure. Such gradients spin up shallow circulations that affect the development of convection. Whereas the importance of such circulations for the triggering of convection over the Sahel region is well accepted and well understood, the effect of such circulations on precipitation amounts as well as on mature convective systems remains unclear. Likewise, the magnitude of the impact of large-scale perturbations of the land surface state on the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere, such as the West African monsoon, has long been debated. One key issue is that such interactions have been mainly investigated in general circulation models where the key involved processes have to rely on uncertain parameterizations, making a definite assessment difficult.


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