Comprehensive Evaluation of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) Model in the North American Land Data Assimilation System

Since the second phase of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS-2) was operationally implemented at NOAA/NCEP as part of the production suite in August 2014, developing the next phase of NLDAS has been a key focus of the NCEP and NASA NLDAS teams. The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model is one of the four land surface models of the NLDAS system. The current operational NLDAS-2 uses version 4.0.3 (VIC403), the research NLDAS-2 used version 4.0.5 (VIC405), and the NASA Land Information System (LIS)-based NLDAS uses version 4.1.2.l (VIC412). The purpose of this study is to evaluate VIC403 and VIC412 and check if the latter version has better performance for the next phase of NLDAS. Toward this, a comprehensive evaluation was conducted, targeting multiple variables and using multiple metrics to assess the performance of different model versions. The evaluation results show large and significant improvements in VIC412 over the southeastern United States when compared with VIC403 and VIC405. In other regions, there are very limited improvements or even deterioration to some degree. This is partially due to 1) the sparseness of USGS streamflow observations for model parameter calibration and 2) a deterioration of VIC model performance in the Great Plains (GP) region after a model upgrade to a newer version. Overall, the model upgrade enhances model performance and skill scores for most parts of the continental United States; exceptions include the GP and western mountainous regions, as well as the daily soil moisture simulation skill, suggesting that VIC model development is on the right path. Further efforts are needed for scientific understanding of land surface physical processes in the GP, and a recalibration of VIC412 using reasonable reference datasets is recommended.