scholarly journals Development of observation-based global multilayer soil moisture products for 1970 to 2016

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4385-4405
Author(s):  
Yaoping Wang ◽  
Jiafu Mao ◽  
Mingzhou Jin ◽  
Forrest M. Hoffman ◽  
Xiaoying Shi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Root Mean Square ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Soil Layer ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Mean Square ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Mean Square Errors

Abstract. Soil moisture (SM) datasets are critical to understanding the global water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles and benefit extensive societal applications. However, individual sources of SM data (e.g., in situ and satellite observations, reanalysis, offline land surface model simulations, Earth system model – ESM – simulations) have source-specific limitations and biases related to the spatiotemporal continuity, resolutions, and modeling and retrieval assumptions. Here, we developed seven global, gap-free, long-term (1970–2016), multilayer (0–10, 10–30, 30–50, and 50–100 cm) SM products at monthly 0.5∘ resolution (available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13661312.v1; Wang and Mao, 2021) by synthesizing a wide range of SM datasets using three statistical methods (unweighted averaging, optimal linear combination, and emergent constraint). The merged products outperformed their source datasets when evaluated with in situ observations (mean bias from −0.044 to 0.033 m3 m−3, root mean square errors from 0.076 to 0.104 m3 m−3, Pearson correlations from 0.35 to 0.67) and multiple gridded datasets that did not enter merging because of insufficient spatial, temporal, or soil layer coverage. Three of the new SM products, which were produced by applying any of the three merging methods to the source datasets excluding the ESMs, had lower bias and root mean square errors and higher correlations than the ESM-dependent merged products. The ESM-independent products also showed a better ability to capture historical large-scale drought events than the ESM-dependent products. The merged products generally showed reasonable temporal homogeneity and physically plausible global sensitivities to observed meteorological factors, except that the ESM-dependent products underestimated the low-frequency temporal variability in SM and overestimated the high-frequency variability for the 50–100 cm depth. Based on these evaluation results, the three ESM-independent products were finally recommended for future applications because of their better performances than the ESM-dependent ones. Despite uncertainties in the raw SM datasets and fusion methods, these hybrid products create added value over existing SM datasets because of the performance improvement and harmonized spatial, temporal, and vertical coverages, and they provide a new foundation for scientific investigation and resource management.

scholarly journals Triple Collocation-Based Assessment of Satellite Soil Moisture Products with In Situ Measurements in China: Understanding the Error Sources

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 2275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaotao Wu ◽  
Guihua Lu ◽  
Zhiyong Wu ◽  
Hai He ◽  
Tracy Scanlon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Root Mean Square Error ◽  
Mean Square Error ◽  
Root Mean Square ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Mean Square ◽  
Error Sources

With the increasing utilization of satellite-based soil moisture products, a primary challenge is knowing their accuracy and robustness. This study presents a comprehensive assessment over China of three widely used global satellite soil moisture products, i.e., Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) Soil Moisture, Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS). In situ soil moisture from 1682 stations and Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model are used to evaluate the performance of SMAP_L3, ESA_CCI_SM_COMBINED, SMOS_CATDS_L3 from 31 March 2015 to 3 June 2018. The Triple Collocation (TC) approach is used to minimize the uncertainty (e.g., scale issue) during the validation process. The TC analysis is conducted using three triplets, i.e., [SMAP-Insitu-VIC], [CCI-Insitu-VIC], [SMOS-Insitu-VIC]. In general, SMAP is the most reliable product, reflecting the main spatiotemporal characteristics of soil moisture, while SMOS has the lowest accuracy. The results demonstrate that the overall root mean square error of SMAP, CCI, SMOS is 0.040, 0.028, 0.107 m3m−3, respectively. The overall temporal correlation coefficient of SMAP, CCI, SMOS is 0.68, 0.65, 0.38, respectively. The overall fractional root mean square error of SMAP, CCI, SMOS is 0.707, 0.750, 0.897, respectively. In irrigated areas, the accuracy of CCI is reduced due to the land surface model (which does not consider irrigation) used for the rescaling of the CCI_COMBINED soil moisture product during the merging process, while SMAP and SMOS preserve the irrigation signal. The quality of SMOS is most strongly impacted by land surface temperature, vegetation, and soil texture, while the quality of CCI is the least affected by these factors. With the increase of Radio Frequency Interference, the accuracy of SMOS decreases dramatically, followed by SMAP and CCI. Higher representativeness error of in situ stations is noted in regions with higher topographic complexity. This study helps to provide a guideline for the application of satellite soil moisture products in scientific research and gives some references (e.g., modify data algorithm according to the main error sources) for improving the data quality.

Towards an operationally capable satellite-based 0-100 cm soil moisture dataset from C3S

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Pasik ◽  
Wolfgang Preimesberger ◽  
Bernhard Bauer-Marschallinger ◽  
Wouter Dorigo
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Soil Profile ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Root Zone ◽  
Soil Layer ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
In Situ Measurements ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
T Values

<p>Multiple satellite-based global surface soil moisture (SSM) datasets are presently available, these however, address exclusively the top layer of the soil (0-5cm). Meanwhile, root-zone soil moisture cannot be directly quantified with remote sensing but can be estimated from SSM using a land surface model. Alternatively, soil water index (SWI; calculated from SSM as a function of time needed for infiltration) can be used as a simple approximation of root-zone conditions. SWI is a proxy for deeper layers of the soil profile which control evapotranspiration, and is hence especially important for studying hydrological processes over vegetation-covered areas and meteorological modelling.</p><p>Here we introduce the advances in our work on the first operationally capable SWI-based root-zone soil moisture dataset from C3S Soil Moisture v201912 COMBINED product, spanning the period 2002-2020. The uniqueness of this dataset lies in the fact that T-values (temporal lengths ruling the infiltration) characteristic of SWI were translated into particular soil depths making it much more intuitive, user-friendly and easily applicable. Available are volumetric soil moisture values for the top 1 m of the soil profile at 10 cm intervals, where the optimal T-value (T-best) for each soil layer is selected based on a range of correlation metrics with in situ measurements from the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) and the relevant soil and climatic parameters.<br>Additionally we present the results of an extensive global validation against in situ measurements (ISMN) as well as the results of investigations into the relationship between a range of soil and climate characteristics and the optimal T-values for particular soil depths.</p>

scholarly journals Evaluations of Machine Learning-Based CYGNSS Soil Moisture Estimates against SMAP Observations

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 3503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volkan Senyurek ◽  
Fangni Lei ◽  
Dylan Boyd ◽  
Ali Cafer Gurbuz ◽  
Mehmet Kurum ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Correlation Coefficient ◽  
Root Mean Square ◽  
Temporal Resolution ◽  
Mean Square ◽  
In Situ Observations ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Mean Square Errors

This paper presents a machine learning (ML) framework to derive a quasi-global soil moisture (SM) product by direct use of the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS)’s high spatio-temporal resolution observations over the tropics (within ±38° latitudes) at L-band. The learning model is trained by using in-situ SM data from the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN) sites and various space-borne ancillary data. The approach produces daily SM retrievals that are gridded to 3 km and 9 km within the CYGNSS spatial coverage. The performance of the model is independently evaluated at various temporal scales (daily, 3-day, weekly, and monthly) against Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission’s enhanced SM products at a resolution of 9 km × 9 km. The mean unbiased root-mean-square difference (ubRMSD) between concurrent (same calendar day) CYGNSS and SMAP SM retrievals for about three years (from 2017 to 2019) is 0.044 cm3 cm−3 with a correlation coefficient of 0.66 over SMAP recommended grids. The performance gradually improves with temporal averaging and degrades over regions regularly flagged by SMAP such as dense forest, high topography, and coastlines. Furthermore, CYGNSS and SMAP retrievals are evaluated against 170 ISMN in-situ observations that result in mean unbiased root-mean-square errors (ubRMSE) of 0.055 cm3 cm−3 and 0.054 cm3 cm−3, respectively, and a higher correlation coefficient with CYGNSS retrievals. It is important to note that the proposed approach is trained over limited in-situ observations and is independent of SMAP observations in its training. The retrieval performance indicates current applicability and future growth potential of GNSS-R-based, directly measured spaceborne SM products that can provide improved spatio-temporal resolution than currently available datasets.

scholarly journals Assimilation of Cosmogenic Neutron Counts for Improved Soil Moisture Prediction in a Distributed Land Surface Model

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amol Patil ◽  
Benjamin Fersch ◽  
Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen ◽  
Harald Kunstmann
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Cosmic Ray ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Validation Period ◽  
Field Scale ◽  
Mean Square Errors

Cosmic-Ray Neutron Sensing (CRNS) offers a non-invasive method for estimating soil moisture at the field scale, in our case a few tens of hectares. The current study uses the Ensemble Adjustment Kalman Filter (EAKF) to assimilate neutron counts observed at four locations within a 655 km2 pre-alpine river catchment into the Noah-MP land surface model (LSM) to improve soil moisture simulations and to optimize model parameters. The model runs with 100 m spatial resolution and uses the EU-SoilHydroGrids soil map along with the Mualem–van Genuchten soil water retention functions. Using the state estimation (ST) and joint state–parameter estimation (STP) technique, soil moisture states and model parameters controlling infiltration and evaporation rates were optimized, respectively. The added value of assimilation was evaluated for local and regional impacts using independent root zone soil moisture observations. The results show that during the assimilation period both ST and STP significantly improved the simulated soil moisture around the neutron sensors locations with improvements of the root mean square errors between 60 and 62% for ST and 55–66% for STP. STP could further enhance the model performance for the validation period at assimilation locations, mainly by reducing the Bias. Nevertheless, due to a lack of convergence of calculated parameters and a shorter evaluation period, performance during the validation phase degraded at a site further away from the assimilation locations. The comparison of modeled soil moisture with field-scale spatial patterns of a dense network of CRNS observations showed that STP helped to improve the average wetness conditions (reduction of spatial Bias from –0.038 cm3 cm−3 to –0.012 cm3 cm−3) for the validation period. However, the assimilation of neutron counts from only four stations showed limited success in enhancing the field-scale soil moisture patterns.

scholarly journals Deriving surface soil moisture from reflected GNSS signal observations from a grassland site in southwestern France

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibo Zhang ◽  
Jean-Christophe Calvet ◽  
José Darrozes ◽  
Nicolas Roussel ◽  
Frédéric Frappart ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Ground Surface ◽  
Satellite System ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Global Navigation Satellite ◽  
Grassland Site

Abstract. This work aims to assess the estimation of surface volumetric soil moisture (VSM) using the Global Navigation Satellite System Interferometric Reflectometry (GNSS-IR) technique. Year-round observations were acquired from a grassland site in southwestern France using an antenna consecutively placed at two contrasting heights above the ground surface (3.3 or 29.4 m). The VSM retrievals are compared with two independent reference datasets: in situ observations of soil moisture, and numerical simulations of soil moisture and vegetation biomass from the ISBA (Interactions between Soil, Biosphere and Atmosphere) land surface model. Scaled VSM estimates can be retrieved throughout the year removing vegetation effects by the separation of growth and senescence periods and by the filtering of the GNSS-IR observations that are most affected by vegetation. Antenna height has no significant impact on the quality of VSM estimates. Comparisons between the VSM GNSS-IR retrievals and the in situ VSM observations at a depth of 5 cm show a good agreement (R2 = 0.86 and RMSE = 0.04 m3 m−3). It is shown that the signal is sensitive to the grass litter water content and that this effect triggers differences between VSM retrievals and in situ VSM observations at depths of 1 cm and 5 cm, especially during light rainfall events.

scholarly journals Using data assimilation to optimize pedotransfer functions using large-scale in-situ soil moisture observations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Cooper ◽  
Eleanor Blyth ◽  
Hollie Cooper ◽  
Rich Ellis ◽  
Ewan Pinnington ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Data Assimilation ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Pedotransfer Functions ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Climate Projections ◽  
Land Surface Models ◽  
Surface Models

Abstract. Soil moisture predictions from land surface models are important in hydrological, ecological and meteorological applications. In recent years the availability of wide-area soil-moisture measurements has increased, but few studies have combined model-based soil moisture predictions with in-situ observations beyond the point scale. Here we show that we can markedly improve soil moisture estimates from the JULES land surface model using field scale observations and data assimilation techniques. Rather than directly updating soil moisture estimates towards observed values, we optimize constants in the underlying pedotransfer functions, which relate soil texture to JULES soil physics parameters. In this way we generate a single set of newly calibrated pedotransfer functions based on observations from a number of UK sites with different soil textures. We demonstrate that calibrating a pedotransfer function in this way can improve the performance of land surface models, leading to the potential for better flood, drought and climate projections.

scholarly journals SMOS Neural Network Soil Moisture Data Assimilation in a Land Surface Model and Atmospheric Impact

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nemesio Rodriguez-Fernandez ◽  
Patricia de Rosnay ◽  
Clement Albergel ◽  
Philippe Richaume ◽  
Filipe Aires ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Data Assimilation ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Northern Asia ◽  
The Impact

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.

Adjoint retrieval of prognostic land surface model variables for an NWP model: Assimilation of ground surface temperature

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diandong Ren
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Soil Temperature ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Surface Soil ◽  
Land Surface Model ◽  
Initial Guess ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Soil Moisture Condition ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Surface Soil Temperature

AbstractBased on a 2-layer land surface model, a rather general variational data assimilation framework for estimating model state variables is developed. The method minimizes the error of surface soil temperature predictions subject to constraints imposed by the prediction model. Retrieval experiments for soil prognostic variables are performed and the results verified against model simulated data as well as real observations for the Oklahoma Atmospheric Surface layer Instrumentation System (OASIS). The optimization scheme is robust with respect to a wide range of initial guess errors in surface soil temperature (as large as 30 K) and deep soil moisture (within the range between wilting point and saturation). When assimilating OASIS data, the scheme can reduce the initial guess error by more than 90%, while for Observing Simulation System Experiments (OSSEs), the initial guess error is usually reduced by over four orders of magnitude.Using synthetic data, the robustness of the retrieval scheme as related to information content of the data and the physical meaning of the adjoint variables and their use in sensitivity studies are investigated. Through sensitivity analysis, it is confirmed that the vegetation coverage and growth condition determine whether or not the optimally estimated initial soil moisture condition leads to an optimal estimation of the surface fluxes. This reconciles two recent studies.With the real data experiments, it is shown that observations during the daytime period are the most effective for the retrieval. Longer assimilation windows result in more accurate initial condition retrieval, underlining the importance of information quantity, especially for schemes assimilating noisy observations.

Hydrological functioning of irrigated maize crops in southwest France using Eddy Covariance measurements and a land surface model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oluwakemi Dare-Idowu ◽  
Lionel Jarlan ◽  
Aurore Brut ◽  
Valerie Le-Dantec ◽  
Vincent Rivalland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eddy Covariance ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Sap Flow ◽  
Heat Fluxes ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Surface Model ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Flow Measurements ◽  
Ground Heat Flux

<p>This study aims to analyze the main components of the energy and hydric budgets of irrigated maize in southwestern France. To this objective, the ISBA-A-gs (<span>Interactions between Soil, Biosphere, and Atmosphere) </span>is run over six maize growing seasons. As a preliminary step, the ability of the ISBA-A-gs model to predict the different terms of the energy and water budgets is assessed thanks to a large database of <em>in situ</em> measurements by comparing the single budget version of the model with the new Multiple Energy Balance version solving an energy budget separately for the soil and the vegetation. The <em>in situ</em> data set acquired at the Lamasquere site (43.48<sup>o</sup> N, 1.249<sup>o</sup> E) includes half-hourly measurements of sensible (H) and latent heat fluxes (LE) estimated by an Eddy Covariance system. Measurements also include net radiation (Rn), ground heat flux (G), plant transpiration with sap flow sensors, meteorological variables, and 15-days measurements of vegetation characteristics. The seasonal dynamics of the turbulent fluxes were properly reproduced by both configurations of the model with an R² ranging from 0.66 to 0.89, and a root mean square error lower than 48 W m<sup>-2</sup>. Statistical metrics showed that H was better predicted by MEB with R² of 0.80 in comparison to ISBA-Ags (0.73). However, the difference between the RMSE of ISBA-Ags and MEB during the well-developed stage of the plants for both H and LE does not exceed 8 W m<sup>-2</sup>. This implies that MEB only has a significant added value over ISBA-Ags when the soil and the canopy are not fully coupled, and over a heterogeneous field. Furthermore, this study made a comparison between the sap flow measurements and the transpiration simulated by ISBA-A-gs and MEB. A good dynamics was reproduced by ISBA-A-gs and MEB, although, MEB (R²= 0.91) provided a slightly more realistic estimation of the vegetation transpiration. Consequently, this study investigated the dynamics of the water budget during the growing maize seasons. Results indicated that drainage is almost null on the site, while the observed values of cumulative evapotranspiration that was higher than the water inputs are related to a shallow ground table that provides supplement water to the crop. This work provides insight into the modeling of water and energy exchanges over maize crops and opens perspectives for better water management of the crop in the future.</p>

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