HR: 17:35h
AN: U24A-04    [Abstracts]
TI: The Global Soil Moisture Data Bank - Benchmark Soil Moisture Observations
AU: * Robock, A
EM: robock@envsci.rutgers.edu
AF: Rutgers University, Department of Environmental Sciences, 14 College Farm Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 United States
AU: Vinnikov, K
EM: kostya@atmos.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, College Park, MD 20742 United States
AU: Li, H
EM: hli@envsci.rutgers.edu
AF: Rutgers University, Department of Environmental Sciences, 14 College Farm Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 United States
AB: Soil moisture is a crucial component of the global hydrological cycle. Summer desiccation is a potential threat from some climate model simulations of global warming, but actual in situ soil moisture observations are needed to examine long term soil moisture changes as well as to develop accurate land surface models. Here we present a set of benchmark in situ soil moisture observations, from long-term observing programs in the United States, Europe, and Asia. The longest time series started in 1958, the same year as the Keeling Mauna Loa CO₂ record, and is based on gravimetric observations from 141 stations at agricultural fields with winter and spring cereal crops in the Ukraine with a temporal resolution of 10 days (3 measurements per month) during the growing period, from April 8 to October 28. We discuss methods of observation, of quality control, and of achieving homogeneity. Shorter records from other locations will also be presented. These benchmark soil moisture observations are being used by the international research community to study climate change, as ground truth for remote sensing, to develop and evaluate land surface models, and to evaluate general circulation model and reanalysis calculations of soil moisture variations. While land data assimilation of remotely-sensed forcing and soil moisture, utilizing a validated land surface model, will be necessary to produce a global soil moisture data set, this goal cannot be achieved without these actual in situ observations.
UR: http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/soil_moisture/
DE: 1840 Hydrometeorology
DE: 1866 Soil moisture
DE: 1895 Instruments and techniques: monitoring
SC: Union [U]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005