scholarly journals The contributions of precipitation and soil moisture observations to the skill of soil moisture estimates in a land data assimilation system

2011 ◽  
pp. 110404091221083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qing Liu ◽  
Rolf H. Reichle ◽  
Rajat Bindlish ◽  
Michael H. Cosh ◽  
Wade T. Crow ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 4018
Author(s):  
El houssaine Bouras ◽  
Lionel Jarlan ◽  
Salah Er-Raki ◽  
Clément Albergel ◽  
Bastien Richard ◽  
...  

In Morocco, cereal production shows high interannual variability due to uncertain rainfall and recurrent drought periods. Considering the socioeconomic importance of cereal for the country, there is a serious need to characterize the impact of drought on cereal yields. In this study, drought is assessed through (1) indices derived from remote sensing data (the vegetation condition index (VCI), temperature condition index (TCI), vegetation health ind ex (VHI), soil moisture condition index (SMCI) and soil water index for different soil layers (SWI)) and (2) key land surface variables (Land Area Index (LAI), soil moisture (SM) at different depths, soil evaporation and plant transpiration) from a Land Data Assimilation System (LDAS) over 2000–2017. A lagged correlation analysis was conducted to assess the relationships between the drought indices and cereal yield at monthly time scales. The VCI and LAI around the heading stage (March-April) are highly linked to yield for all provinces (R = 0.94 for the Khemisset province), while a high link for TCI occurs during the development stage in January-February (R = 0.83 for the Beni Mellal province). Interestingly, indices related to soil moisture in the superficial soil layer are correlated with yield earlier in the season around the emergence stage (December). The results demonstrate the clear added value of using an LDAS compared with using a remote sensing product alone, particularly concerning the soil moisture in the root-zone, considered a key variable for yield production, that is not directly observable from space. The time scale of integration is also discussed. By integrating the indices on the main phenological stages of wheat using a dynamic threshold approach instead of the monthly time scale, the correlation between indices and yield increased by up to 14%. In addition, the contributions of VCI and TCI to VHI were optimized by using yield anomalies as proxies for drought. This study opens perspectives for the development of drought early warning systems in Morocco and over North Africa, as well as for seasonal crop yield forecasting.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Mucia ◽  
Clément Albergel ◽  
Bertrand Bonan ◽  
Yongjun Zheng ◽  
Jean-Christophe Calvet

<p>LDAS-Monde is a global Land Data Assimilation System developed in the research department of Météo-France (CNRM) to monitor Land Surface Variables (LSVs) at various scales, from regional to global. With LDAS-Monde, it is possible to assimilate satellite derived observations of Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) and Leaf Area Index (LAI) e.g. from the Copernicus Global Land Service (CGLS). It is an offline system normally driven by atmospheric reanalyses such as ECMWF ERA5.</p><p>In this study we investigate LDAS-Monde ability to use atmospheric forecasts to predict LSV states up to weeks in advance. In addition to the accuracy of the forecast predictions, the impact of the initialization on the LSVs forecast is addressed. To perform this study, LDAS-Monde is forced by a fifteen-day forecast from ECMWF for the 2017-2018 period over the Contiguous United States (CONUS) at 0.2<sup>o</sup> x 0.2<sup>o</sup> spatial resolution. These LSVs forecasts are initialized either by the model alone (LDAS-Monde open-loop, no assimilation, Fc_ol) or by the analysis (assimilation of SSM and LAI, Fc_an). These two sets of forecast are then assessed using satellite derived observations of SSM and LAI, evapotranspiration estimates, as well as in situ measurements of soil moisture from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). Results indicate that for the three evaluation variables (SSM, LAI, and evapotranspiration), LDAS-Monde provides reasonably accurate predictions two weeks in advance. Additionally, the initial conditions are shown to make a positive impact with respect to LAI, evapotranspiration, and deeper layers of soil moisture when using Fc_an. Moreover, this impact persists in time, particularly for vegetation related variables. Other model variables (such as runoff and drainage) are also affected by the initial conditions. Future work will focus on the transfer of this predictive information from a research to stakeholder tool.</p>


2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 780-793 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kun Yang ◽  
Toshio Koike ◽  
Ichirow Kaihotsu ◽  
Jun Qin

Abstract This study examines the capability of a new microwave land data assimilation system (LDAS) for estimating soil moisture in semiarid regions, where soil moisture is very heterogeneous. This system assimilates the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) 6.9- and 18.7-GHz brightness temperatures into a land surface model (LSM), with a radiative transfer model as an observation operator. To reduce errors caused by uncertainties of system parameters, the LDAS uses a dual-pass assimilation algorithm, with a calibration pass to estimate major model parameters from satellite data and an assimilation pass to estimate the near-surface soil moisture. Validation data of soil moisture were collected in a Mongolian semiarid region. Results show that (i) the LDAS-estimated soil moistures are comparable to areal averages of in situ measurements, though the measured soil moistures were highly variable from site to site; (ii) the LSM-simulated soil moistures show less biases when the LSM uses LDAS-calibrated parameter values instead of default parameter values, indicating that the satellite-based calibration does contribute to soil moisture estimations; and (iii) compared to the LSM, the LDAS produces more robust and reliable soil moisture when forcing data become worse. The lower sensitivity of the LDAS output to precipitation is particularly encouraging for applying this system to regions where precipitation data are prone to errors.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1571-1593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujay V. Kumar ◽  
Michael Jasinski ◽  
David M. Mocko ◽  
Matthew Rodell ◽  
Jordan Borak ◽  
...  

Abstract This article describes one of the first successful examples of multisensor, multivariate land data assimilation, encompassing a large suite of soil moisture, snow depth, snow cover, and irrigation intensity environmental data records (EDRs) from the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR), Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I), Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT), Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E and AMSR2), Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. The analysis is performed using the NASA Land Information System (LIS) as an enabling tool for the U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA). The performance of the NCA Land Data Assimilation System (NCA-LDAS) is evaluated by comparing it to a number of hydrological reference data products. Results indicate that multivariate assimilation provides systematic improvements in simulated soil moisture and snow depth, with marginal effects on the accuracy of simulated streamflow and evapotranspiration. An important conclusion is that across all evaluated variables, assimilation of data from increasingly more modern sensors (e.g., SMOS, SMAP, AMSR2, ASCAT) produces more skillful results than assimilation of data from older sensors (e.g., SMMR, SSM/I, AMSR-E). The evaluation also indicates the high skill of NCA-LDAS when compared with other LSM products. Further, drought indicators based on NCA-LDAS output suggest a trend of longer and more severe droughts over parts of the western United States during 1979–2015, particularly in the southwestern United States, consistent with the trends from the U.S. Drought Monitor, albeit for a shorter 2000–15 time period.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Mucia ◽  
Bertrand Bonan ◽  
Yongjun Zheng ◽  
Clément Albergel ◽  
Jean-Christophe Calvet

LDAS-Monde is a global land data assimilation system (LDAS) developed by Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM) to monitor land surface variables (LSV) at various scales, from regional to global. With LDAS-Monde, it is possible to jointly assimilate satellite-derived observations of surface soil moisture (SSM) and leaf area index (LAI) into the interactions between soil biosphere and atmosphere (ISBA) land surface model (LSM) in order to analyze the soil moisture profile together with vegetation biomass. In this study, we investigate LDAS-Monde’s ability to predict LSV states up to two weeks in the future using atmospheric forecasts. In particular, the impact of the initialization, and the evolution of the forecasted variables in the LSM are addressed. LDAS-Monde is an offline system normally driven by atmospheric reanalysis, but in this study is forced by atmospheric forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) for the 2017–2018 period over the contiguous United States (CONUS) at a 0.2° × 0.2° spatial resolution. These LSV forecasts are initialized either by the model alone (LDAS-Monde open-loop, without assimilation) or by the analysis (assimilation of SSM and LAI). These two forecasts are then evaluated using satellite-derived observations of SSM and LAI, evapotranspiration (ET) estimates, as well as in situ measurements of soil moisture from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). Results indicate that for the three evaluation variables (SSM, LAI, and ET), LDAS-Monde provides reasonably accurate and consistent predictions two weeks in advance. Additionally, the initial conditions after assimilation are shown to make a positive impact with respect to LAI and ET. This impact persists in time for these two vegetation-related variables. Many model variables, such as SSM, root zone soil moisture (RZSM), LAI, ET, and drainage, remain relatively consistent as the forecast lead time increases, while runoff is highly variable.


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