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Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.5194/hess-25-4209-2021
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) Comprehensive evaluation of satellite-based and reanalysis soil moisture products using in situ observations over China
Author Ling, X.; Huang, Y.; Guo, W.; Wang, Y.; Chen, C.; Qiu, B.; Ge, J.; Qin, K.; Xue, Y.; Peng, J. ORCID logo
Source Titel Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
Year 2021
Department RS
Volume 25
Issue 7
Page From 4209
Page To 4229
Language englisch
Topic T5 Future Landscapes
Abstract Soil moisture (SM) plays a critical role in the water and energy cycles of the earth system; consequently, a long-term SM product with high quality is urgently needed. In this study, five SM products, including one microwave remote sensing product [European Space Agency's Climate Change Initiative (ESA CCI)] and four reanalysis datasets [European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis-Interim (ERAI), National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis 5 (ERA5)], are systematically evaluated using in situ measurements during 1981–2013 in four climate regions at different timescales over mainland China. The results show that ESA CCI is closest to the observations in terms of both the spatial distributions and magnitude of the monthly SM. All reanalysis products tend to overestimate soil moisture in all regions but have higher correlations than the remote sensing product except in Northwest China. The largest inconsistency is found in southern Northeast China, with a relative RMSE value larger than 0.1. However, none of the products can well reproduce the trends of interannual anomalies. The largest relative bias of 44.6 % is found for the ERAI SM product under severe drought conditions, and the lowest relative biases of 4.7 % and 9.5 % are found for the ESA CCI SM product under severe drought conditions and the NCEP SM product under normal conditions, respectively. As decomposing mean square errors in all the products suggests that the bias terms are the dominant contribution, the ESA CCI SM product is a good option for long-term hydrometeorological applications in mainland China. ERA5 is also a promising product, which is attributed to the incorporation of more observations. This long-term intercomparison study provides clues for SM product enhancement and further hydrological applications.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=24827
Ling, X., Huang, Y., Guo, W., Wang, Y., Chen, C., Qiu, B., Ge, J., Qin, K., Xue, Y., Peng, J. (2021):
Comprehensive evaluation of satellite-based and reanalysis soil moisture products using in situ observations over China
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 25 (7), 4209 - 4229 10.5194/hess-25-4209-2021