Publication Date:
2019-11-23
Description:
Accurate partitioning of precipitation into infiltration and runoff is a fundamental objective of land surface models tasked with characterizing the surface water and energy balance. Temporal variability in this partitioning is due, in part, to changes in prestorm soil moisture, which determine soil infiltration capacity and unsaturated storage. Utilizing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Soil Moisture Active Passive Level4 soil moisture product in combination with streamflow and precipitation observations, we demonstrate that land surface models (LSMs) generally underestimate the strength of the positive rank correlation between prestorm soil moisture and event runoff coefficients (i.e., the fraction of rainfall accumulation volume converted into stormflow runoff during a storm event). Underestimation is largest for LSMs employing an infiltrationexcess approach for stormflow runoff generation. More accurate coupling strength is found in LSMs that explicitly represent subsurface stormflow or saturationexcess runoff generation processes.
Keywords:
Earth Resources and Remote Sensing
Type:
GSFC-E-DAA-TN55996
,
Geophysical Research Letters (ISSN 0094-8276) (e-ISSN 1944-8007); 45; 10; 4869-4878
Format:
application/pdf
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