ALBERT

Description: Past studies on soil moisture spatial variability have been mainly conducted in catchment scales where soil moisture is often sampled over a short time period. Because of limited climate and weather conditions, the observed soil moisture often exhibited smaller dynamic ranges which prevented the complete revelation of soil moisture spatial variability as a function of mean soil moisture. In this study, spatial statistics (mean, spatial variability and skewness) of in situ soil moisture measurements (from a continuously monitored network across the US), modeled and satellite retrieved soil moisture obtained in a warm season (198 days) were examined at large extent scales (〉100 km) over three different climate regions. The investigation on in situ measurements revealed that their spatial moments strongly depend on climates, with distinct mean, spatial variability and skewness observed in each climate zone. In addition, an upward convex shape, which was revealed in several smaller scale studies, was observed for the relationship between spatial variability of in situ soil moisture and its spatial mean across dry, intermediate, and wet climates. These climate specific features were vaguely or partially observable in modeled and satellite retrieved soil moisture estimates, which is attributed to the fact that these two data sets do not have climate specific and seasonal sensitive mean soil moisture values, in addition to lack of dynamic ranges. From the point measurements to satellite retrievals, soil moisture spatial variability decreased in each climate region. The three data sources all followed the power law in the scale dependency of spatial variability, with coarser resolution data showing stronger scale dependency than finer ones. The main findings from this study are: (1) the statistical distribution of soil moisture depends on spatial mean soil moisture values and thus need to be derived locally within any given area; (2) the boundedness of soil moisture plays a pivoting role in the dependency of soil moisture spatial variability/skewness on its mean (and thus climate conditions); (3) the scale dependency of soil moisture spatial variability changes with climate conditions.