scholarly journals Development of Global Land Surface Evapotranspiration and Water Balance Data Sets.

Author(s):  
Chung-Hyun AHN ◽  
Ryutaro TATEISHI
Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guojie Wang ◽  
Jian Pan ◽  
Chengcheng Shen ◽  
Shijie Li ◽  
Jiao Lu ◽  
...  

Evapotranspiration (ET), a critical process in global climate change, is very difficult to estimate at regional and basin scales. In this study, we evaluated five ET products: the Global Land Surface Evaporation with the Amsterdam Methodology (GLEAM, the EartH2Observe ensemble (E2O)), the Global Land Data Assimilation System with Noah Land Surface Model-2 (GLDAS), a global ET product at 8 km resolution from Zhang (ZHANG) and a supplemental land surface product of the Modern-ERA Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA_land), using the water balance method in the Yellow River Basin, China, including twelve catchments, during the period of 1982–2000. The results showed that these ET products have obvious different performances, in terms of either their magnitude or temporal variations. From the viewpoint of multiple-year averages, the MERRA_land product shows a fairly similar magnitude to the ETw derived from the water balance method, while the E2O product shows significant underestimations. The GLEAM product shows the highest correlation coefficient. From the viewpoint of interannual variations, the ZHANG product performs best in terms of magnitude, while the E2O still shows significant underestimations. However, the E2O product best describes the interannual variations among the five ET products. Further study has indicated that the discrepancies between the ET products in the Yellow River Basin are mainly due to the quality of precipitation forcing data. In addition, most ET products seem to not be sensitive to the downward shortwave radiation.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 16003-16041 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Melton ◽  
V. K. Arora

Abstract. Terrestrial ecosystem models commonly represent vegetation in terms of plant functional types (PFTs) and use their vegetation attributes in calculations of the energy and water balance and to investigate the terrestrial carbon cycle. To accomplish these tasks, two approaches for PFT spatial representation are widely used: "composite" and "mosaic". The impact of these two approaches on the global carbon balance has been investigated with the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM v 1.2) coupled to the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS v 3.6). In the composite (single-tile) approach, the vegetation attributes of different PFTs present in a grid cell are aggregated and used in calculations to determine the resulting physical environmental conditions (soil moisture, soil temperature, etc.) that are common to all PFTs. In the mosaic (multi-tile) approach, energy and water balance calculations are performed separately for each PFT tile and each tile's physical land surface environmental conditions evolve independently. Pre-industrial equilibrium CLASS-CTEM simulations yield global totals of vegetation biomass, net primary productivity, and soil carbon that compare reasonably well with observation-based estimates and differ by less than 5% between the mosaic and composite configurations. However, on a regional scale the two approaches can differ by > 30%, especially in areas with high heterogeneity in land cover. Simulations over the historical period (1959–2005) show different responses to evolving climate and carbon dioxide concentrations from the two approaches. The cumulative global terrestrial carbon sink estimated over the 1959–2005 period (excluding land use change (LUC) effects) differs by around 5% between the two approaches (96.3 and 101.3 Pg, for the mosaic and composite approaches, respectively) and compares well with the observation-based estimate of 82.2 ± 35 Pg C over the same period. Inclusion of LUC causes the estimates of the terrestrial C sink to differ by 15.2 Pg C (16%) with values of 95.1 and 79.9 Pg C for the mosaic and composite approaches, respectively. Spatial differences in simulated vegetation and soil carbon and the manner in which terrestrial carbon balance evolves in response to LUC, in the two approaches, yields a substantially different estimate of the global land carbon sink. These results demonstrate that the spatial representation of vegetation has an important impact on the model response to changing climate, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and land cover.


2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Y. Sun ◽  
J. Chen ◽  
J. Donges

Abstract. Terrestrial water storage (TWS) exerts a key control in global water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles. Although certain causal relationship exists between precipitation and TWS, the latter quantity also reflects impacts of anthropogenic activities. Thus, quantification of the spatial patterns of TWS will not only help to understand feedbacks between climate dynamics and the hydrologic cycle, but also provide new insights and model calibration constraints for improving the current land surface models. This work is the first attempt to quantify the spatial connectivity of TWS using the complex network theory, which has received broad attention in the climate modeling community in recent years. Complex networks of TWS anomalies are built using two global TWS data sets, a remote sensing product that is obtained from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission, and a model-generated data set from the global land data assimilation system's NOAH model (GLDAS-NOAH). Both data sets have 1° × 1° grid resolutions and cover most global land areas except for permafrost regions. TWS networks are built by first quantifying pairwise correlation among all valid TWS anomaly time series, and then applying a cutoff threshold derived from the edge-density function to retain only the most important features in the network. Basinwise network connectivity maps are used to illuminate connectivity of individual river basins with other regions. The constructed network degree centrality maps show the TWS anomaly hotspots around the globe and the patterns are consistent with recent GRACE studies. Parallel analyses of networks constructed using the two data sets reveal that the GLDAS-NOAH model captures many of the spatial patterns shown by GRACE, although significant discrepancies exist in some regions. Thus, our results provide further measures for constraining the current land surface models, especially in data sparse regions.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2741-2754 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. V. Spracklen ◽  
R. Righelato

Abstract. Tropical montane forests (TMFs) are recognized for the provision of hydrological services and the protection of biodiversity, but their role in carbon storage is not well understood. We synthesized published observations (n = 94) of above-ground biomass (AGB) from forest inventory plots in TMFs (defined here as forests between 23.5° N and 23.5° S with elevations ≥ 1000 m a.s.l.). We found that mean (median) AGB in TMFs is 271 (254) t per hectare of land surface. We demonstrate that AGB declines moderately with both elevation and slope angle but that TMFs store substantial amounts of biomass, both at high elevations (up to 3500 m) and on steep slopes (slope angles of up to 40°). We combined remotely sensed data sets of forest cover with high resolution data of elevation to show that 75% of the global planimetric (horizontal) area of TMF are on steep slopes (slope angles greater than 27°). We used our remote sensed data sets to demonstrate that this prevalence of steep slopes results in the global land surface area of TMF (1.22 million km2) being 40% greater than the planimetric area that is the usual basis for reporting global land surface areas and remotely sensed data. Our study suggests that TMFs are likely to be a greater store of carbon than previously thought, highlighting the need for conservation of the remaining montane forests.


2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 784-794 ◽  
Author(s):  
Le Yang ◽  
Qinhuo Liu ◽  
Jing Zhao ◽  
Lifeng Bao
Keyword(s):  

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1021-1036 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Melton ◽  
V. K. Arora

Abstract. Terrestrial ecosystem models commonly represent vegetation in terms of plant functional types (PFTs) and use their vegetation attributes in calculations of the energy and water balance as well as to investigate the terrestrial carbon cycle. Sub-grid scale variability of PFTs in these models is represented using different approaches with the "composite" and "mosaic" approaches being the two end-members. The impact of these two approaches on the global carbon balance has been investigated with the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM v 1.2) coupled to the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS v 3.6). In the composite (single-tile) approach, the vegetation attributes of different PFTs present in a grid cell are aggregated and used in calculations to determine the resulting physical environmental conditions (soil moisture, soil temperature, etc.) that are common to all PFTs. In the mosaic (multi-tile) approach, energy and water balance calculations are performed separately for each PFT tile and each tile's physical land surface environmental conditions evolve independently. Pre-industrial equilibrium CLASS-CTEM simulations yield global totals of vegetation biomass, net primary productivity, and soil carbon that compare reasonably well with observation-based estimates and differ by less than 5% between the mosaic and composite configurations. However, on a regional scale the two approaches can differ by > 30%, especially in areas with high heterogeneity in land cover. Simulations over the historical period (1959–2005) show different responses to evolving climate and carbon dioxide concentrations from the two approaches. The cumulative global terrestrial carbon sink estimated over the 1959–2005 period (excluding land use change (LUC) effects) differs by around 5% between the two approaches (96.3 and 101.3 Pg, for the mosaic and composite approaches, respectively) and compares well with the observation-based estimate of 82.2 ± 35 Pg C over the same period. Inclusion of LUC causes the estimates of the terrestrial C sink to differ by 15.2 Pg C (16%) with values of 95.1 and 79.9 Pg C for the mosaic and composite approaches, respectively. Spatial differences in simulated vegetation and soil carbon and the manner in which terrestrial carbon balance evolves in response to LUC, in the two approaches, yields a substantially different estimate of the global land carbon sink. These results demonstrate that the spatial representation of vegetation has an important impact on the model response to changing climate, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and land cover.


2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 921-998 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Becker ◽  
P. Finger ◽  
A. Meyer-Christoffer ◽  
B. Rudolf ◽  
K. Schamm ◽  
...  

Abstract. The availability of highly accessible and reliable monthly gridded data sets of the global land-surface precipitation is a need that has already been identified in the mid-80s when there was a complete lack of a globally homogeneous gauge based precipitation analysis. Since 1989 the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) has built up a unique capacity to assemble, quality assure, and analyse rain gauge data gathered from all over the world. The resulting data base has exceeded 200 yr in temporal coverage and has acquired data from more than 85 000 stations world-wide. This paper provides the reference publication for the four globally gridded monthly precipitation products of the GPCC covering a 111-yr analysis period from 1901–present, processed from this data base. As required for a reference publication, the content of the product portfolio, as well as the underlying methodologies to process and interpolate are detailed. Moreover, we provide information on the systematic and statistical errors associated with the data products. Finally, sample applications provide potential users of GPCC data products with suitable advice on capabilities and constraints of the gridded data sets. In doing so, the capabilities to access ENSO and NAO sensitive precipitation regions and to perform trend analysis across the past 110 yr are demonstrated. The four gridded products, i.e. the Climatology V2011 (CLIM), the Full Data Reanalysis (FD) V6, the Monitoring Product (MP) V4, and the First Guess Product (FG) are public available on easy accessible latitude longitude grids encoded in zipped clear text ASCII files for subsequent visualization and download through the GPCC download gate hosted on ftp://ftp.dwd.de/pub/data/gpcc/html/download_gate.html by the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Offenbach, Germany. Depending on the product four (0.25°, 0.5°, 1.0°, 2.5° for CLIM), three (0.5°, 1.0°, 2.5°, for FD), two (1.0°, 2.5° for MP) or one (1.0° for FG) resolutions are provided, and for each product a DOI reference is provided allowing for public user access to the products. A preliminary description of the scope of a fifth product – the Homogenized Precipitation Analysis (HOMPRA) – is also provided. Its comprehensive description will be handed later in an extra paper upon completion of this data product. DOIs of the gridded datasets examined: doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2011_025, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2011_050, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2011_100, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2011_250, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V6_050, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V6_100, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V6_250, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/MP_M_V4_100, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/MP_M_V4_250, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FG_M_100


2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Becker ◽  
P. Finger ◽  
A. Meyer-Christoffer ◽  
B. Rudolf ◽  
K. Schamm ◽  
...  

Abstract. The availability of highly accessible and reliable monthly gridded data sets of global land-surface precipitation is a need that was already identified in the mid-1980s when there was a complete lack of globally homogeneous gauge-based precipitation analyses. Since 1989, the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) has built up its unique capacity to assemble, quality assure, and analyse rain gauge data gathered from all over the world. The resulting database has exceeded 200 yr in temporal coverage and has acquired data from more than 85 000 stations worldwide. Based on this database, this paper provides the reference publication for the four globally gridded monthly precipitation products of the GPCC, covering a 111-yr analysis period from 1901–present. As required for a reference publication, the content of the product portfolio, as well as the underlying methodologies to process and interpolate are detailed. Moreover, we provide information on the systematic and statistical errors associated with the data products. Finally, sample applications provide potential users of GPCC data products with suitable advice on capabilities and constraints of the gridded data sets. In doing so, the capabilities to access El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) sensitive precipitation regions and to perform trend analyses across the past 110 yr are demonstrated. The four gridded products, i.e. the Climatology (CLIM) V2011, the Full Data Reanalysis (FD) V6, the Monitoring Product (MP) V4, and the First Guess Product (FG), are publicly available on easily accessible latitude/longitude grids encoded in zipped clear text ASCII files for subsequent visualization and download through the GPCC download gate hosted on ftp://ftp.dwd.de/pub/data/gpcc/html/download_gate.html by the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Offenbach, Germany. Depending on the product, four (0.25°, 0.5°, 1.0°, 2.5° for CLIM), three (0.5°, 1.0°, 2.5°, for FD), two (1.0°, 2.5° for MP) or one (1.0° for FG) resolution is provided, and for each product a DOI reference is provided allowing for public user access to the products. A preliminary description of the scope of a fifth product – the Homogenized Precipitation Analysis (HOMPRA) – is also provided. Its comprehensive description will be submitted later in an extra paper upon completion of this data product. DOIs of the gridded data sets examined are as follows: doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2011_025, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2011_050, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2011_100, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2011_250, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V6_050, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V6_100, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FD_M_V6_250, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/MP_M_V4_100, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/MP_M_V4_250, doi:10.5676/DWD_GPCC/FG_M_100.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 4177-4187 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Ukkola ◽  
I. C. Prentice

Abstract. Climate change is expected to alter the global hydrological cycle, with inevitable consequences for freshwater availability to people and ecosystems. But the attribution of recent trends in the terrestrial water balance remains disputed. This study attempts to account statistically for both trends and interannual variability in water-balance evapotranspiration (ET), estimated from the annual observed streamflow in 109 river basins during "water years" 1961–1999 and two gridded precipitation data sets. The basins were chosen based on the availability of streamflow time-series data in the Dai et al. (2009) synthesis. They were divided into water-limited "dry" and energy-limited "wet" basins following the Budyko framework. We investigated the potential roles of precipitation, aerosol-corrected solar radiation, land use change, wind speed, air temperature, and atmospheric CO2. Both trends and variability in ET show strong control by precipitation. There is some additional control of ET trends by vegetation processes, but little evidence for control by other factors. Interannual variability in ET was overwhelmingly dominated by precipitation, which accounted on average for 54–55% of the variation in wet basins (ranging from 0 to 100%) and 94–95% in dry basins (ranging from 69 to 100%). Precipitation accounted for 45–46% of ET trends in wet basins and 80–84% in dry basins. Net atmospheric CO2 effects on transpiration, estimated using the Land-surface Processes and eXchanges (LPX) model, did not contribute to observed trends in ET because declining stomatal conductance was counteracted by slightly but significantly increasing foliage cover.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Dingbao Wang ◽  
Stacey Archfield ◽  
Meredith Reitz ◽  
Richard M. Vogel ◽  
...  

Abstract. Global hydroclimatic conditions have been significantly altered over the past century by anthropogenic influences that arise from the warming global climate and also from local/regional anthropogenic disturbances. Traditionally, studies have used coupling of multiple models to understand how land-surface fluxes vary due to changes in global climatic patterns and local land-use changes. We argue that Budyko's framework that relies on the supply and demand concept could be effectively adapted and extended to quantify the role of drivers – both changing climate and local human disturbances – in altering the land-surface response across the globe. We review the Budyko framework along with potential extensions with an intent to further the applicability of the framework to emerging hydrologic questions. Challenges in extending the Budyko framework over various spatio-temporal scales and evaluating the water balance at these various scales with global data sets are also discussed.


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