Spin-up behavior of soil moisture content over East Asia in a land surface model

Abstract

This study presents an investigation of the spin-up behavior of soil moisture content (SMC) and evapotranspiration (ET) in an offline Noah land surface model (LSM) for East Asia, focusing on its interplay with the Asian monsoon. The set of 5-year recursive runs is conducted to properly assess the spin-up behavior of land surface processes and consists of simulations initialized with (1) a spatially uniform soil moisture, (2) NCEP GDAS soil moisture data, and (3) ECMWF ERA-Interim soil moisture data. Each run starts either after or before the summer monsoon. Initial SMCs from GDAS and ERA-Interim data significantly deviate from the equilibrium state (spin-up state) with the given input forcing even though the same equilibrium is reached within 3-year spin-up time, indicating that spin-up of land surface process is necessary. SMC reaches the equilibrium much quickly when (1) the consistent LSMs have been used in the prediction and analysis systems and (2) the spin-up simulation starts before the onset of heavy rainfall events during summer monsoon. For an area with heavy monsoon rainfall, the total column SMC and ET spin up quickly. The spin-up time over dry land is about 2–3 years, but for monsoon rainfall area decreases dramatically to about 3 months if the spin-up run starts just before the onset of monsoon. Further scrutiny shows that the spin-up time is well correlated with evaporative fraction given by the ratio between the latent heat flux and the available energy at the land surface.