Abstract
Abstract. A plateau scale soil moisture and soil temperature observatory is established on the Tibetan Plateau for quantifying uncertainties in coarse resolution satellite and model products of soil moisture and soil temperature. The Tibetan Plateau observatory of plateau scale soil moisture and soil temperature (Tibet-Obs) consists of three regional scale in-situ reference networks, including the Naqu network in a cold semiarid climate, the Maqu network in a cold humid climate and the Ngari network in a cold arid climate. These networks provide a representative coverage of the different climate and land surface hydrometeorological conditions on the Tibetan plateau. In this paper the details of the Tibet-Obs are reported. To demonstrate the uniqueness of the Tibet-Obs in quantifying and explaining soil moisture uncertainties in existing coarse satellite products, an analysis is carried out to assess the reliability of several satellite products for the Naqu and the Maqu network areas. It is concluded that global coarse resolution soil moisture products are useful but exhibit till now unreported uncertainties in cold and semiarid regions – use of them would be critically enhanced if uncertainties can be quantified and reduced using in-situ measurements.
Highlights
Soil moisture is a key state variable of the land surface controlling the partition of rainfall to subsoil drainage, surface runoff, or evaporation from the land surface
Models designed to simulate local dynamics using optimised parameters usually fail to achieve this task. It is confirmed within the GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment) Global Soil Moisture Project (Dirmeyer et al, 2004) that global models display a large, and often unexplained, variation among estimates produced by different models
As a contribution to these monitoring programs worldwide, this paper reports on the development of an observatory in one of the most remote and least explored areas on earth, but yet very important for understanding the climate system, the Tibetan Plateau
Summary
Soil moisture is a key state variable of the land surface controlling the partition of rainfall to subsoil drainage, surface runoff, or evaporation from the land surface. Yang et al, 2007, 2009; Drusch et al, 2008; Qin et al, 2009; Tian et al, 2009), in which con-3 tinuous data sets are produced by integrating remote sens-4 ing data sets in a land surface model At present, several such systems produce operational spatiotemporally contin-5 uous soil moisture estimates and examples are the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) (Rodell et al.,6 2004) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim) (http:7 //www.ecmwf.int/research/era/do/get/era-interim). The data sets collected (and to be collected) by these networks are expected to contribute a further insight in the role of the Tibetan Plateau in the development of the Asian Monsoon They may be found useful in validating satellite based soil moisture products and obtaining an improved understanding of the land surface processes in high elevation regions.
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