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Soil Moisture as a Harbinger of Increased Forecast Reliability at Subseasonal Time ScalesThe shape of the nonlinear relationship between evapotranspiration and soil moisture (the "ET-W relationship") helps control the evolution of soil moisture with time. Together, the shape of the relationship and the magnitude of the soil moisture anomaly at the beginning of a subseasonal forecast help determine whether a given anomaly will still be present at subseasonal leads, allowing it to contribute to skill in subseasonal temperature and precipitation prediction at those leads. In this study we examine subseasonal prediction in the context of soil moisture initialization using a suite of forecasts performed with the NASA GEOS seasonal forecast system. Large soil moisture anomalies are in fact found to be harbingers of increased skill in the subseasonal forecasts. Furthermore, accounting explicitly for the nonlinear shape of the ET-W relationship improves our ability to quantity the increase in forecast reliability associated with soil moisture initialization.



Document ID
20200000426
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Presentation
Authors
Koster, Randal (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Schubert, Siegfried (Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI) Lanham, MD, United States)
DeAngelis, Anthony (Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI) Lanham, MD, United States)
Molod, Andrea (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Mahanama, Sarith (Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI) Lanham, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
January 16, 2020
Publication Date
January 12, 2020
Subject Category
Geosciences (General)
Report/Patent Number
GSFC-E-DAA-TN76878
Meeting Information
Meeting: AMS Annual Meeting
Location: Boston, MA
Country: United States
Start Date: January 12, 2020
End Date: January 16, 2020
Sponsors: American Meteorological Society (AMS-HQ)
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.

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