Comment on essd-2022-67

Abstract

High resolution gridded datasets of meteorological variables are needed in order to resolve fine-scale hydrological gradients in complex mountainous terrain. Across the United States, the highest available spatial resolution of gridded datasets of daily meteorological records is approximately 800 m. This work presents gridded datasets of daily precipitation and mean temperature for the East-Taylor subbasin (in western United States) covering a 12-year period (2008–2019) at a high spatial resolution (400 m). The datasets are generated using a downscaling framework that uses data-driven models to learn relationships between climate variables and topography. We observe that downscaled datasets of precipitation and mean temperature exhibit smoother spatial gradients compared to their coarser counterparts. Additionally, we also observe that when downscaled datasets are reaggregated to the original resolution (800 m), the mean residual error is almost zero, ensuring spatial consistency with the original data. Furthermore, the downscaled datasets are observed to be linearly related to elevation, which is consistent with the methodology underlying the original 800 m product. Finally, we validate the spatial patterns exhibited by downscaled datasets via an example use case that models lidar-derived estimates of snowpack. The presented dataset constitutes a valuable resource to resolve fine-sale hydrological gradients in the mountainous terrain of the East-Taylor subbasin, which is an important study area in the context of water security for southwestern United States and Mexico. The dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.15485/1822259 (Mital et al., 2021).