scholarly journals Spatial Patterns in Actual Evapotranspiration Climatologies for Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 2410
Author(s):  
Simon Stisen ◽  
Mohsen Soltani ◽  
Gorka Mendiguren ◽  
Henrik Langkilde ◽  
Monica Garcia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Clear Sky ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Pattern Similarity ◽  
Need To Evaluate ◽  
Unique Source ◽  
Distributed Hydrological Models

Spatial patterns in long-term average evapotranspiration (ET) represent a unique source of information for evaluating the spatial pattern performance of distributed hydrological models on a river basin to continental scale. This kind of model evaluation is getting increased attention, acknowledging the shortcomings of traditional aggregated or timeseries-based evaluations. A variety of satellite remote sensing (RS)-based ET estimates exist, covering a range of methods and resolutions. There is, therefore, a need to evaluate these estimates, not only in terms of temporal performance and similarity, but also in terms of long-term spatial patterns. The current study evaluates four RS-ET estimates at moderate resolution with respect to spatial patterns in comparison to two alternative continental-scale gridded ET estimates (water-balance ET and Budyko). To increase comparability, an empirical correction factor between clear sky and all-weather ET, based on eddy covariance data, is derived, which could be suitable for simple corrections of clear sky estimates. Three RS-ET estimates (MODIS16, TSEB and PT-JPL) and the Budyko method generally display similar spatial patterns both across the European domain (mean SPAEF = 0.41, range 0.25–0.61) and within river basins (mean SPAEF range 0.19–0.38), although the pattern similarity within river basins varies significantly across basins. In contrast, the WB-ET and PML_V2 produced very different spatial patterns. The similarity between different methods ranging over different combinations of water, energy, vegetation and land surface temperature constraints suggests that robust spatial patterns of ET can be achieved by combining several methods.

scholarly journals Gradients of column CO<sub>2</sub> across North America from the NOAA Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (24) ◽  
pp. 15151-15165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Lan ◽  
Pieter Tans ◽  
Colm Sweeney ◽  
Arlyn Andrews ◽  
Andrew Jacobson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Reference Network ◽  
Spatial Gradients ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Satellite Retrievals ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Total Column

Abstract. This study analyzes seasonal and spatial patterns of column carbon dioxide (CO2) over North America, calculated from aircraft and tall tower measurements from the NOAA Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network from 2004 to 2014. Consistent with expectations, gradients between the eight regions studied are larger below 2 km than above 5 km. The 11-year mean CO2 dry mole fraction (XCO2) in the column below  ∼  330 hPa ( ∼  8 km above sea level) from NOAA's CO2 data assimilation model, CarbonTracker (CT2015), demonstrates good agreement with those calculated from calibrated measurements on aircraft and towers. Total column XCO2 was attained by combining modeled CO2 above 330 hPa from CT2015 with the measurements. We find large spatial gradients of total column XCO2 from June to August, with north and northeast regions having  ∼  3 ppm stronger summer drawdown (peak-to-valley amplitude in seasonal cycle) than the south and southwest regions. The long-term averaged spatial gradients of total column XCO2 across North America show a smooth pattern that mainly reflects the large-scale circulation. We have conducted a CarbonTracker experiment to investigate the impact of Eurasian long-range transport. The result suggests that the large summertime Eurasian boreal flux contributes about half of the north–south column XCO2 gradient across North America. Our results confirm that continental-scale total column XCO2 gradients simulated by CarbonTracker are realistic and can be used to evaluate the credibility of some spatial patterns from satellite retrievals, such as the long-term average of growing-season spatial patterns from satellite retrievals reported for Europe which show a larger spatial difference ( ∼  6 ppm) and scattered hot spots.

scholarly journals MPR 1.0: A stand-alone Multiscale Parameter Regionalization Tool for Improved Parameter Estimation of Land Surface Models

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Schweppe ◽  
Stephan Thober ◽  
Matthias Kelbling ◽  
Rohini Kumar ◽  
Sabine Attinger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parameter Estimation ◽  
Parameter Space ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Land Surface Models ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Environmental Models ◽  
Surface Models

Abstract. Distributed environmental models such as land surface models (LSM) require model parameters in each spatial modelling unit (e.g. grid cell), thereby leading to a high-dimensional parameter space. One approach to decrease the dimen- sionality of parameter space in these models is to use regularization techniques. One such highly efficient technique is the Multiscale Parameter Regionalization (MPR) framework that translates high-resolution predictor variables (e.g., soil textural properties) into model parameters (e.g., porosity) via transfer functions (TFs) and upscaling operators that are suitable for every modeled process. This framework yields seamless model parameters at multiple scales and locations in an effective manner. However, integration of MPR into existing modeling workflows has been hindered thus far by hard-coded configurations and non-modular software designs. For these reasons, we redesigned MPR as a model-agnostic, stand-alone tool. It is a useful software for creating graphs of netCDF variables, wherein each node is a variable and the links consist of TFs and/or upscaling operators. In this study, we present and verify our tool against a previous version, which was implemented in the mesoscale hydrologic model mHM (www.ufz.de/mhm). By using this tool for the generation of continental-scale soil hydraulic param- eters applicable to different models (Noah-MP and HTESSEL), we showcase its general functionality and flexibility. Further, using model parameters estimated by the MPR tool leads to significant changes in long-term estimates of evapotranspiration, as compared to their default parameterizations. For example, a change of up to 25 % in long-term evapotranspiration flux is observed in Noah-MP and HTESSEL in the Mississippi River basin. We postulate that use of the stand-alone MPR tool will considerably increase the transparency and reproducibility of the parameter estimation process in distributed (environmental) models. It will also allow a rigorous uncertainty estimation related to the errors of the predictors (e.g., soil texture fields), transfer function and its parameters, and remapping (or upscaling) algorithms.

scholarly journals A New Retrieval Algorithm for Soil Moisture Index from Thermal Infrared Sensor On-Board Geostationary Satellites over Europe and Africa and Its Validation

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 1968 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Ghilain ◽  
Alirio Arboleda ◽  
Okke Batelaan ◽  
Jonas Ardö ◽  
Isabel Trigo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Retrieval Algorithm ◽  
Moisture Index ◽  
Clear Sky ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Geostationary Satellites ◽  
Northern Latitudes ◽  
Microwave Sensors

Monitoring soil moisture at the Earth’surface is of great importance for drought early warnings. Spaceborne remote sensing is a keystone in monitoring at continental scale, as satellites can make observations of locations which are scarcely monitored by ground-based techniques. In recent years, several soil moisture products for continental scale monitoring became available from the main space agencies around the world. Making use of sensors aboard polar satellites sampling in the microwave spectrum, soil moisture can be measured and mapped globally every few days at a spatial resolution as fine as 25 km. However, complementarity of satellite observations is a crucial issue to improve the quality of the estimations provided. In this context, measurements within the visible and infrared from geostationary satellites provide information on the surface from a totally different perspective. In this study, we design a new retrieval algorithm for daily soil moisture monitoring based only on the land surface temperature observations derived from the METEOSAT second generation geostationary satellites. Soil moisture has been retrieved from the retrieval algorithm for an eight years period over Europe and Africa at the SEVIRI sensor spatial resolution (3 km at the sub-satellite point). The results, only available for clear sky and partly cloudy conditions, are for the first time extensively evaluated against in-situ observations provided by the International Soil Moisture Network and FLUXNET at sites across Europe and Africa. The soil moisture retrievals have approximately the same accuracy as the soil moisture products derived from microwave sensors, with the most accurate estimations for semi-arid regions of Europe and Africa, and a progressive degradation of the accuracy towards northern latitudes of Europe. Although some possible improvements can be expected by a better use of other products derived from SEVIRI, the new approach developped and assessed here is a valuable alternative to microwave sensors to monitor daily soil moisture at the resolution of few kilometers over entire continents and could reveal a good complementarity to an improved monitoring system, as the algorithm can produce surface soil moisture with less than 1 day delay over clear sky and non-steady cloudy conditions (over 10% of the time).

Spatial patterns of long-term trends in thunderstorms in India

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soma Sen Roy ◽  
Shouraseni Sen Roy
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Patterns ◽  
Long Term Trends

scholarly journals Extensive Evaluation of a Continental-Scale High-Resolution Hydrological Model Using Remote Sensing and Ground-Based Observations

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1247
Author(s):  
Bowen Zhu ◽  
Xianhong Xie ◽  
Chuiyu Lu ◽  
Tianjie Lei ◽  
Yibing Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Hydrological Modeling ◽  
Infiltration Capacity ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Large Domain ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Extensive Evaluation ◽  
Mean Differences ◽  
Fine Resolution

Extreme hydrologic events are getting more frequent under a changing climate, and a reliable hydrological modeling framework is important to understand their mechanism. However, existing hydrological modeling frameworks are mostly constrained to a relatively coarse resolution, unrealistic input information, and insufficient evaluations, especially for the large domain, and they are, therefore, unable to address and reconstruct many of the water-related issues (e.g., flooding and drought). In this study, a 0.0625-degree (~6 km) resolution variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model developed for China from 1970 to 2016 was extensively evaluated against remote sensing and ground-based observations. A unique feature in this modeling framework is the incorporation of new remotely sensed vegetation and soil parameter dataset. To our knowledge, this constitutes the first application of VIC with such a long-term and fine resolution over a large domain, and more importantly, with a holistic system-evaluation leveraging the best available earth data. The evaluations using in-situ observations of streamflow, evapotranspiration (ET), and soil moisture (SM) indicate a great improvement. The simulations are also consistent with satellite remote sensing products of ET and SM, because the mean differences between the VIC ET and the remote sensing ET range from −2 to 2 mm/day, and the differences for SM of the top thin layer range from −2 to 3 mm. Therefore, this continental-scale hydrological modeling framework is reliable and accurate, which can be used for various applications including extreme hydrological event detections.

scholarly journals Summertime Continental Shallow Cumulus Cloud Detection Using GOES-16 Satellite and Ground-Based Stereo Cameras at the DOE ARM Southern Great Plains Site

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 2309
Author(s):  
Jingjing Tian ◽  
Yunyan Zhang ◽  
Stephen A. Klein ◽  
Likun Wang ◽  
Rusen Öktem ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Great Plains ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Detection Threshold ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
Surface Reflectance ◽  
Cloud Detection ◽  
Southern Great Plains ◽  
Clear Sky ◽  
Shallow Cumulus ◽  
Stereo Cameras

Summertime continental shallow cumulus clouds (ShCu) are detected using Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-16 reflectance data, with cross-validation by observations from ground-based stereo cameras at the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Southern Great Plains site. A ShCu cloudy pixel is identified when the GOES reflectance exceeds the clear-sky surface reflectance by a reflectance detection threshold of ShCu, ΔR. We firstly construct diurnally varying clear-sky surface reflectance maps and then estimate the ∆R. A GOES simulator is designed, projecting the clouds reconstructed by stereo cameras towards the surface along the satellite’s slanted viewing direction. The dynamic ShCu detection threshold ΔR is determined by making the GOES cloud fraction (CF) equal to the CF from the GOES simulator. Although there are temporal variabilities in ΔR, cloud fractions and cloud size distributions can be well reproduced using a constant ΔR value of 0.045. The method presented in this study enables daytime ShCu detection, which is usually falsely reported as clear sky in the GOES-16 cloud mask data product. Using this method, a new ShCu dataset can be generated to bridge the observational gap in detecting ShCu, which may transition into deep precipitating clouds, and to facilitate further studies on ShCu development over heterogenous land surface.

scholarly journals A Simple Method for Converting 1-km Resolution Daily Clear-Sky LST into Real LST

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1641
Author(s):  
Yunfei Zhang ◽  
Yunhao Chen ◽  
Jing Li ◽  
Xi Chen
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Missing Values ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽  
Shortwave Radiation ◽  
Simple Method ◽  
The Real ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Clear Sky ◽  
Reconstruction Methods

Land-surface temperature (LST) plays a key role in the physical processes of surface energy and water balance from local through global scales. The widely used one kilometre resolution daily Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LST product has missing values due to the influence of clouds. Therefore, a large number of clear-sky LST reconstruction methods have been developed to obtain spatially continuous LST datasets. However, the clear-sky LST is a theoretical value that is often an overestimate of the real value. In fact, the real LST (also known as cloudy-sky LST) is more necessary and more widely used. The existing cloudy-sky LST algorithms are usually somewhat complicated, and the accuracy needs to be improved. It is necessary to convert the clear-sky LST obtained by the currently better-developed methods into cloudy-sky LST. We took the clear-sky LST, cloud-cover duration, downward shortwave radiation, albedo and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as five independent variables and the real LST at the ground stations as the dependent variable to perform multiple linear regression. The mean absolute error (MAE) of the cloudy-sky LST retrieved by this method ranged from 3.5–3.9 K. We further analyzed different cases of the method, and the results suggested that this method has good flexibility. When we chose fewer independent variables, different clear-sky algorithms, or different regression tools, we also achieved good results. In addition, the method calculation process was relatively simple and can be applied to other research areas. This study preliminarily explored the influencing factors of the real LST and can provide a possible option for researchers who want to obtain cloudy-sky LST through clear-sky LST, that is, a convenient conversion method. This article lays the foundation for subsequent research in various fields that require real LST.

scholarly journals Cities Exacerbate Climate Warming

Urban Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Lahouari Bounoua ◽  
Kurtis Thome ◽  
Joseph Nigro
Keyword(s):  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Warming Trend ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Temperature Changes ◽  
Surface Warming ◽  
The Us

Urbanization is a complex land transformation not explicitly resolved within large-scale climate models. Long-term timeseries of high-resolution satellite data are essential to characterize urbanization within land surface models and to assess its contribution to surface temperature changes. The potential for additional surface warming from urbanization-induced land use change is investigated and decoupled from that due to change in climate over the continental US using a decadal timescale. We show that, aggregated over the US, the summer mean urban-induced surface temperature increased by 0.15 °C, with a warming of 0.24 °C in cities built in vegetated areas and a cooling of 0.25 °C in cities built in non-vegetated arid areas. This temperature change is comparable in magnitude to the 0.13 °C/decade global warming trend observed over the last 50 years caused by increased CO2. We also show that the effect of urban-induced change on surface temperature is felt above and beyond that of the CO2 effect. Our results suggest that climate mitigation policies must consider urbanization feedback to put a limit on the worldwide mean temperature increase.

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