scholarly journals Coupling the Community Land Model version 5.0 to the parallel data assimilation framework PDAF: Description and applications

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Strebel ◽  
Heye Bogena ◽  
Harry Vereecken ◽  
Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen

Abstract. Land surface models are important for improving our understanding of the earth system. They are continuously improving and becoming more accurate in describing the varied surface processes, e.g. the Community Land Model version 5 (CLM5). Similarly, observational networks and remote sensing operations are increasingly providing more and higher quality data. For the optimal combination of land surface models and observation data, data assimilation techniques have been developed in the past decades that incorporate observations to update modeled states and parameters. The Parallel Data Assimilation Framework (PDAF) is a software environment that enables ensemble data assimilation and simplifies the implementation of data assimilation systems in numerical models. In this paper, we present the further development of the PDAF to enable its application in combination with CLM5. This novel coupling adapts the optional CLM5 ensemble mode to enable integration of PDAF filter routines while keeping changes to the pre-existing parallel communication infrastructure to a minimum. Soil water content observations from an extensive in-situ measurement network in the Wüstebach catchment in Germany are used to illustrate the application of the coupled CLM5+PDAF system. The results show overall reductions in root mean square error of soil water content from 7 % up to 35 % compared to simulations without data assimilation. We expect the coupled CLM5+PDAF system to provide a basis for improved regional to global land surface modelling by enabling the assimilation of globally available observational data.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Strebel ◽  
Klaus Goergen ◽  
Bibi S. Naz ◽  
Heye Bogena ◽  
Harry Vereecken ◽  
...  

<p>Modeling forest ecosystems is important to facilitate adaptations in forest management approaches necessary to address the challenges of climate change, particularly of interest are ecohydrological states and fluxes such as soil water content, biomass, leaf area index, and evapotranspiration.</p><p>The community land model in its current version 5 (CLM5) simulates a broad collection of important land-surface processes; from moisture and energy partitioning, through biogeophysical processes, to surface and subsurface runoff. Additionally, CLM5 contains a biogeochemistry model (CLM5-BGC) which includes prognostic computation of vegetation states and carbon and nitrogen pools. However, CLM5 predictions are affected by uncertainty related to uncertain model forcings and parameters. Here, we use data assimilation methods to improve model performance by assimilating soil water content observations into CLM5 using the parallel data assimilation framework (PDAF).</p><p> </p><p>The coupled modeling framework was applied to the small (38.5 ha) forested catchment Wüstebach located in the Eifel National Park near the German-Belgian border. As part of the terrestrial environmental observatories (TERENO) network, the SoilNet sensors at the study site provide soil water content and soil temperature measurements since 2009.</p><p>CLM5 simulations for the period 2009-2100 were made, using local atmospheric observations for the period of 2009-2018 and an ensemble of regional climate model projections for 2019-2100. Simulations illustrate that data assimilation of soil water content improves the characterization of past model states, and that estimated model parameters and default model parameters result in different trajectories of ecohydrological states for 2019-2100. The simulations also illustrate that this site is hardly affected by increased water stress in the future.</p><p>The developed framework will be extended and applied for both ecosystem reanalysis as well as further simulations using climate projections across forested sites over Europe.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 4460
Author(s):  
Dayang Wang ◽  
Dagang Wang ◽  
Chongxun Mo

Terrestrial evapotranspiration (ET) is a critical component of water and energy cycles, and improving global land evapotranspiration is one of the challenging works in the development of land surface models (LSMs). In this study, we apply a bias correction approach into the Community Land Model version 5.0 (CLM5) globally by utilizing the remote sensing-based ET dataset. Results reveal that the correction approach can alleviate both overestimation and underestimation of ET by CLM5 over the globe. The adjustment to overestimation is generally effective, whereas the effectiveness for underestimation is determined by the ET regime, namely water-limited or energy-limited. In the areas with abundant precipitation, the underestimation is effectively corrected by increasing ET without the water supply limit. In areas with rare precipitation, however, increasing ET is limited by water supply, which leads to an undesirable correction effect. Compared with the ET simulated by CLM5, the bias correction approach can reduce the global-averaged relative bias (RB) and the root mean square error (RMSE) by 51.8% and 65.9% against Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM) ET data, respectively. Meanwhile, the correlation coefficient (CC) can also be improved from 0.93 to 0.98. Continentally, the most substantial ET improvement occurs in Asia, with the RB and RMSE decreased by 69.7% (from 7.04% to 2.14%) and 70.2% (from 0.312 mm day−1 to 0.093 mm day−1, equivalent to from 114 mm year−1 to 34 mm year−1), and the CC increased from 0.92 to 0.99, respectively. Consequently, benefiting from the improvement of ET, the simulations of runoff and soil moisture are also improved over the globe and each of the six continents, and the improvement varies with region. This study demonstrates that the use of satellite-based ET products is beneficial to hydrological simulations in land surface models over the globe.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagang Wang ◽  
Guiling Wang ◽  
Dana T. Parr ◽  
Weilin Liao ◽  
Youlong Xia ◽  
...  

Abstract. Land surface models bear substantial biases in simulating surface water and energy budgets despite of the continuous development and improvement of model parameterizations. To reduce model biases, Parr et al. (2015) proposed a method incorporating satellite-based evapotranspiration (ET) products into land surface models. Here we apply this method to the Community Land Model version 4.5 (CLM4.5) and test its performance over the conterminous US (CONUS). We first calibrate a relationship between the observational ET from the Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM) product and the model ET from CLM4.5, and assume that this relationship holds beyond the calibration period. During the validation or application period, a simulation using the default CLM4.5 (CLM) is conducted first, and its output is combined with the calibrated observational-vs-model ET relationship to derive a corrected ET; an experiment (CLMET) is then conducted in which the model-generated ET is overwritten using the corrected ET. Using the observations of ET, runoff, and soil moisture content as benchmarks, we demonstrate that CLMET greatly reduces the biases existing in CLM. The improvement differs with region, being more significant in eastern CONUS than western CONUS, with the most striking improvement over the southeast CONUS. This regional dependence reflects primarily the regional dependence in the degree to which the relationship between observational and model ET remains time-invariant (a fundamental hypothesis of the Parr et al. method). The bias correction method provides an alternative way to improve the performance of land surface models, which could lead to more realistic drought evaluations with improved ET and soil moisture estimates.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (9) ◽  
pp. 4927-4958 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongjuan Zhang ◽  
Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen ◽  
Xujun Han ◽  
Jasper A. Vrugt ◽  
Harry Vereecken

Abstract. Land surface models (LSMs) use a large cohort of parameters and state variables to simulate the water and energy balance at the soil–atmosphere interface. Many of these model parameters cannot be measured directly in the field, and require calibration against measured fluxes of carbon dioxide, sensible and/or latent heat, and/or observations of the thermal and/or moisture state of the soil. Here, we evaluate the usefulness and applicability of four different data assimilation methods for joint parameter and state estimation of the Variable Infiltration Capacity Model (VIC-3L) and the Community Land Model (CLM) using a 5-month calibration (assimilation) period (March–July 2012) of areal-averaged SPADE soil moisture measurements at 5, 20, and 50 cm depths in the Rollesbroich experimental test site in the Eifel mountain range in western Germany. We used the EnKF with state augmentation or dual estimation, respectively, and the residual resampling PF with a simple, statistically deficient, or more sophisticated, MCMC-based parameter resampling method. The performance of the calibrated LSM models was investigated using SPADE water content measurements of a 5-month evaluation period (August–December 2012). As expected, all DA methods enhance the ability of the VIC and CLM models to describe spatiotemporal patterns of moisture storage within the vadose zone of the Rollesbroich site, particularly if the maximum baseflow velocity (VIC) or fractions of sand, clay, and organic matter of each layer (CLM) are estimated jointly with the model states of each soil layer. The differences between the soil moisture simulations of VIC-3L and CLM are much larger than the discrepancies among the four data assimilation methods. The EnKF with state augmentation or dual estimation yields the best performance of VIC-3L and CLM during the calibration and evaluation period, yet results are in close agreement with the PF using MCMC resampling. Overall, CLM demonstrated the best performance for the Rollesbroich site. The large systematic underestimation of water storage at 50 cm depth by VIC-3L during the first few months of the evaluation period questions, in part, the validity of its fixed water table depth at the bottom of the modeled soil domain.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 3557-3577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagang Wang ◽  
Guiling Wang ◽  
Dana T. Parr ◽  
Weilin Liao ◽  
Youlong Xia ◽  
...  

Abstract. Land surface models bear substantial biases in simulating surface water and energy budgets despite the continuous development and improvement of model parameterizations. To reduce model biases, Parr et al. (2015) proposed a method incorporating satellite-based evapotranspiration (ET) products into land surface models. Here we apply this bias correction method to the Community Land Model version 4.5 (CLM4.5) and test its performance over the conterminous US (CONUS). We first calibrate a relationship between the observational ET from the Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM) product and the model ET from CLM4.5, and assume that this relationship holds beyond the calibration period. During the validation or application period, a simulation using the default CLM4.5 (CLM) is conducted first, and its output is combined with the calibrated observational-vs.-model ET relationship to derive a corrected ET; an experiment (CLMET) is then conducted in which the model-generated ET is overwritten with the corrected ET. Using the observations of ET, runoff, and soil moisture content as benchmarks, we demonstrate that CLMET greatly improves the hydrological simulations over most of the CONUS, and the improvement is stronger in the eastern CONUS than the western CONUS and is strongest over the Southeast CONUS. For any specific region, the degree of the improvement depends on whether the relationship between observational and model ET remains time-invariant (a fundamental hypothesis of the Parr et al. (2015) method) and whether water is the limiting factor in places where ET is underestimated. While the bias correction method improves hydrological estimates without improving the physical parameterization of land surface models, results from this study do provide guidance for physically based model development effort.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongjuan Zhang ◽  
Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen ◽  
Xujun Han ◽  
Jasper Vrugt ◽  
Harry Vereecken

Abstract. Land surface models (LSMs) contain a suite of different parameters and state variables to resolve the water and energy balance at the soil-atmosphere interface. Many of the parameters of these models cannot be measured directly in the field, and require calibration against flux and soil moisture data. In this paper, we use the Variable Infiltration Capacity Hydrologic Model (VIC) and the Community Land Model (CLM) to simulate temporal variations in soil moisture content at 5, 20 and 50 cm depth in the Rollesbroich experimental watershed in Germany. Four different data assimilation (DA) methods are used to jointly estimate the spatially distributed water content values, and hydraulic and/or thermal properties of the resolved soil domain. This includes the Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) using state augmentation or dual estimation, the Residual Resampling Particle Filter (RRPF) and Markov chain Monte Carlo Particle Filter (MCMCPF). These four DA methods are tuned and calibrated for a five month data period, and subsequently evaluated for another five month period. Our results show that all the different DA methods improve the fit of the VIC and CLM model to the observed water content data, particularly if the maximum baseflow velocity (VIC), soil hydraulic (VIC) properties and/or soil texture (CLM) are jointly estimated along with the model states. In the evaluation period, the augmentation and dual estimation method performed slightly better than RRPF and MCMCPF. The differences in simulated soil moisture values between the CLM and VIC model were larger than variations among the data assimilation algorithms. The best performance for the Rollesbroich site was observed for the CLM model. The strong underestimation of the soil moisture values of the third VIC-layer are likely explained by an inadequate parameterization of groundwater drainage.


2012 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 829-844 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Pan ◽  
Yakov Pachepsky ◽  
Diederik Jacques ◽  
Andrey Guber ◽  
Robert L. Hill

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Cooper ◽  
Eleanor Blyth ◽  
Hollie Cooper ◽  
Rich Ellis ◽  
Ewan Pinnington ◽  
...  

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.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Titta Majasalmi ◽  
Ryan M. Bright

Abstract. Vegetation optical properties have a direct impact on canopy absorption and scattering and are thus needed for modeling surface fluxes. Although Plant Functional Type (PFT) classification varies between different land surface models (LSMs), their optical properties must be specified. The aim of this study is to revisit the time-invariant optical properties table of the Simple Biosphere (SiB) model (later referred as SiB-table) presented 30-years ago by Dorman and Sellers (1989) which has since become adopted by many LSMs. This revisit was needed as much of the data underlying the SiB-table was not formally reviewed or published or was based on older papers or personal communications (i.e. the validity of the optical property source data cannot be inspected due to missing data sources, outdated citation practices, and varied estimation methods). As many of today's LSMs (e.g. Community Land Model (CLM), Jena Scheme of Atmosphere Biosphere Coupling in Hamburg (JSBACH), and Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES)) either rely on the optical properties of the SiB-table or lack references altogether for those they do employ, there is a clear need to assess (and confirm or correct) the appropriateness of those being used in today's LSMs. Here, we use various spectral databases to synthesize and harmonize the key optical property information of PFT classification shared by many leading LSMs. For forests, such classifications typically differentiate PFTs by broad geo-climatic zones (i.e. tropical, boreal, temperate) and phenology (i.e. deciduous vs. evergreen). For short-statured vegetation, such classifications typically differentiate between crops and grasses and by photosynthetic pathway. Using the PFT classification of the CLM (version 5) as an example, we found the optical properties of the visible band (VIS; 400–700 nm) to be appropriate. However, in the near-infrared and shortwave infrared bands (NIR+SWIR; e.g. 701–2500 nm, referred as NIR) notable differences between CLM default and measured estimates were observed, thus suggesting that NIR optical properties need updating in the model. For example, for conifer PFTs, the measured mean needle albedo estimates in NIR were 62 % and 78 % larger than the CLM default parameters, and for PFTs with flat-leaves, the measured mean leaf albedo values in NIR were 20 %, 14 % and 19 % larger than the CLM defaults. We also found that while the CLM5 PFT-dependent leaf angle definitions were sufficient for forested PFTs and grasses, for crop PFTs the default parameterization appeared too vertically oriented thus warranting an update. In addition, we propose using separate bark reflectance values for conifer and deciduous PFTs and introduce the concept and application of photon recollision probability (p). The p may be used to upscale needle spectra into shoot spectra to meet the common assumption that foliage is located randomly within the canopy volume (behind canopy radiative transfer calculation) to account for multiple scattering effects caused by needles clustered into shoots.


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