HR: 1340h
AN: H23E-1177    [Abstracts]
TI: Virtual mission stage I: Implications of a spaceborne surface water mission
AU: * Clark, E A
EM: eclark@hydro.washington.edu
AF: University of Washington Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Wilson Ceramic Laboratory Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195-2700 United States
AU: Alsdorf, D E
EM: alsdorf@geog.ucla.edu
AF: Ohio State University Department of Geological Sciences, 275 Mendenhall Laboratory 125 South Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1308 United States
AU: Bates, P
EM: Paul.Bates@bristol.ac.uk
AF: University of Bristol School of Geographical Sciences, University Road, Bristol, BS8 1SS United Kingdom
AU: Wilson, M D
EM: M.D.Wilson@bristol.ac.uk
AF: University of Bristol School of Geographical Sciences, University Road, Bristol, BS8 1SS United Kingdom
AU: Lettenmaier, D P
EM: dennisl@u.washington.edu
AF: University of Washington Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Wilson Ceramic Laboratory Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195-2700 United States
AB: The interannual and interseasonal variability of the land surface water cycle depend on the distribution of surface water in lakes, wetlands, reservoirs, and river systems; however, measurements of hydrologic variables are sparsely distributed, even in industrialized nations. Moreover, the spatial extent and storage variations of lakes, reservoirs, and wetlands are poorly known. We are developing a virtual mission to demonstrate the feasibility of observing surface water extent and variations from a spaceborne platform. In the first stage of the virtual mission, on which we report here, surface water area and fluxes are emulated using simulation modeling over three continental scale river basins, including the Ohio River, the Amazon River and an Arctic river. The Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) macroscale hydrologic model is used to simulate evapotranspiration, soil moisture, snow accumulation and ablation, and runoff and streamflow over each basin at one-eighth degree resolution. The runoff from this model is routed using a linear transfer model to provide input to a much more detailed flow hydraulics model. The flow hydraulics model then routes runoff through various channel and floodplain morphologies at a 250 m spatial and 20 second temporal resolution over a 100 km by 500 km domain. This information is used to evaluate trade-offs between spatial and temporal resolutions of a hypothetical high resolution spaceborne altimeter by synthetically sampling the resultant model-predicted water surface elevations.
DE: 3360 Remote sensing
DE: 1836 Hydrologic budget (1655)
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
DE: 1894 Instruments and techniques
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting