Abstract
Hydrologic models predict the spatial and temporal distribution of water and energy at the land surface. Currently, parameter availability limits global-scale hydrologic modelling to very coarse resolution, hindering researchers from resolving fine-scale variability. With the aim of addressing this problem, we present a set of globally consistent soil and vegetation parameters for the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model at 1/16° resolution (approximately 6 km at the equator), with spatial coverage from 60°S to 85°N. Soil parameters derived from interpolated soil profiles and vegetation parameters estimated from space-based MODIS measurements have been compiled into input files for both the Classic and Image drivers of the VIC model, version 5. Geographical subsetting codes are provided, as well. Our dataset provides all necessary land surface parameters to run the VIC model at regional to global scale. We evaluate VICGlobal’s ability to simulate the water balance in the Upper Colorado River basin and 12 smaller basins in the CONUS, and their ability to simulate the radiation budget at six SURFRAD stations in the CONUS.
Highlights
Background & SummaryThe Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC, https://github.com/UW-Hydro/VIC) model is a macroscale, semi-distributed hydrologic model[1,2,3] that calculates land surface states and fluxes by solving the surface water and energy balances
As useful as the N2001 dataset has been over the years, the VIC-modeling community would be well-served by a higher-resolution update
The parameters are arranged as a relational database: each grid cell has a unique identifier, called a grid cell number, in the soil parameter file, that VIC uses to find the corresponding rows of data in the vegetation parameter and elevation band files
Summary
The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC, https://github.com/UW-Hydro/VIC) model is a macroscale, semi-distributed hydrologic model[1,2,3] that calculates land surface states and fluxes by solving the surface water and energy balances. The N2001 dataset and its derivatives are limited by the dataset’s coarse resolution, geographically sparse subset of leaf-area index observations, and assumptions of temporally-invariant albedo and 100 percent canopy coverage for all land cover classes, as noted by Bohn and Vivoni[9], who developed a new VIC parameter dataset for North America that addresses these issues. Bohn and Vivoni[9] ( BV2019) released an updated 1/16° vegetation parameter dataset for the CONUS, Mexico, and part of Canada, improving on of the limitations of the L2013 dataset, such as its assumption of temporally-invariant albedo They estimated time-varying albedo, leaf-area index (LAI), and fractional canopy cover using observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). Drawing on the L2013 and BV2019 VIC parameterizations, we developed VICGlobal, a near-global dataset of soil and vegetation parameters for the VIC model at 1/16° resolution, which VIC users can download and subset to their region of study. The VICGlobal parameter files are available in two formats: one for VIC-5 Classic, and one for VIC-5 Image
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