Identification

Title

Revising the ensemble-based Kalman filter covariance for the retrieval of deep-layer soil moisture

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that soil moisture in the top layers (e.g., within the top 1-m depth) can be retrieved by assimilating near-surface soil moisture observations into a land surface model using ensemble-based data assimilation algorithms. However, it remains a challenging issue to provide good estimates of soil moisture in the deep layers, because the error correlation between the surface and deep layers is low and hence is easily influenced by the physically limited range of soil moisture, probably resulting in a large noise-to-signal ratio. Furthermore, the temporally correlated errors between the surface and deep layers and the nonlinearity of the system make the retrieval even more difficult. To tackle these problems, a revised ensemble-based Kalman filter covariance method is proposed by constraining error covariance estimates in deep layers in two ways: 1) explicitly using the error covariance at the previous time step and 2) limiting the increase of the soil moisture error correlation with the increase of the vertical distance between the two layers. This method is then tested at three separate point locations representing different precipitation regimes. It is found that the proposed method can effectively control the abrupt changes of error covariance estimates between the surface layer and two deep layers. It significantly improves the estimates of soil moisture in the two deep layers with daily updating. For example, relative to the initial background error, after 150 daily updates, the error in the deepest layer reduces to 11.4%, 32.3%, and 27.1% at the wet, dry, and medium wetness locations, only reducing to 62.3%, 80.8%, and 47.5% with the original method, respectively. However, the improvement of deep-layer soil moisture retrieval is very slight when the updating frequency is reduced to once every three days.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d79w0grj

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

Keywords

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Text

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title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

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Temporal reference

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date type

publication

effective date

2010-02-01T00:00:00Z

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Use constraints

Copyright 2010 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

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