| ERA-Interim/Land is a global land surface reanalysis data set over the period 1979-2010,
where the evolution of soil moisture, soil temperature and snowpack are described (Balsamo
et al. 2015). It is the result of a single simulation with the latest version of the ECMWF land
surface model driven by the meteorological forcing from ERA-Interim and precipitation
adjustments based on monthly mean values from GPCP v2.1.
In this study the role of a more realistic prescription of precipitation for the
description of soil moisture is assessed by comparing ERA-Interim/Land with the soil
moisture from Era-Interim. For this, respective local climatologies as well as the
climatological annual cycles for selected regions (i.e., Amazonia, West Africa or India) are
compared. Furthermore, we assess the relevance of more realistic soil moisture for
the simulation of surface heat fluxes and precipitation in the IFS model version
used for the re-analyses by comparing 24-hour forecasts of these meteorological
variables initiated from ERA-Interim/Land and ERA-Interim, respectively. Again,
this is done for the respective local climatologies and the climatological annual
cycles for selected regions. Finally, the soil moisture as well as the surface energy
fluxes and precipitation as simulated in the latest climate version of ECMWF’s IFS
model (i.e., EC-Earth v3) are analysed and compared to the soil moisture from
ERA-Interim/Land and ERA-Interim and to the forecasts initiated from these two
re-analyses. This allows for an assessment of the quality of the simulation of soil
moisture, the surface energy fluxes and precipitation by EC-Earth as compared to
the case that the meteorological forcing is constrained by observations in the two
re-analyses.
Reference: Balsamo G, and 12 co-authors (2015) ERA-Interim/Land: a global land
surface reanalysis data set. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci 19: 389-407 |