A Study on the Assessment of Multi-Source Satellite Soil Moisture Products and Reanalysis Data for the Tibetan Plateau
1
Laboratory for Atmospheric Observation and Climate Environment Research, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
2
CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology, Hefei 230026, China
3
Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Climate Change, Nanjing 210023, China
4
Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100101, China
5
CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
6
College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this study and shared first authorship.
Remote Sens. 2019, 11(10), 1196; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11101196
Received: 20 March 2019
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Revised: 15 May 2019
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Accepted: 17 May 2019
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Published: 20 May 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Observations, Modeling, and Impacts of Climate Extremes)
Soil moisture is a key variable in the process of land–atmosphere energy and water exchange. Currently, there are a large number of operational satellite-derived soil moisture products and reanalysis soil moisture products available. However, due to the lack of in situ soil moisture measurements over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), their accuracy and applicability are unclear. Based on the in situ measurements of the soil moisture observing networks established at Maqu, Naqu, Ali, and Shiquanhe (Sq) by the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environmental Resources, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Twente over the TP, the accuracy and reliability of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative Soil Moisture version 4.4 (ESA CCI SM v4.4) soil moisture products and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis 5 (ERA5) soil moisture product were evaluated. The spatiotemporal distributions and interannual variations of the soil moisture were analyzed. Further, the climatological soil moisture changing trends across the TP were explored. The results show that with regard to the whole plateau, the combined product performs the best (unbiased root-mean-square error (ubRMSE) = 0.043 m3/m3, R = 0.66), followed by the active product (ubRMSE = 0.048 m3/m3, R = 0.62), the passive product (ubRMSE = 0.06 m3/m3, R = 0.61), and the ERA5 soil moisture product (ubRMSE = 0.067 m3/m3, R = 0.52). Considering the good spatiotemporal data continuity of the ERA5 soil moisture product, the ERA5 soil moisture data from 1979 to 2018 were used to analyze the climatological soil moisture changing trend for the entire TP surface. It was found that there was an increasing trend of soil moisture across the TP, which was consistent with the overall trends of increasing precipitation and decreasing evaporation. Moreover, the shrinkage of the cryosphere in conjunction with the background TP warming presumably contribute to soil moisture change.
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Keywords:
soil moisture; ESA CCI SM; ERA5; Tibetan Plateau
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MDPI and ACS Style
Cheng, M.; Zhong, L.; Ma, Y.; Zou, M.; Ge, N.; Wang, X.; Hu, Y. A Study on the Assessment of Multi-Source Satellite Soil Moisture Products and Reanalysis Data for the Tibetan Plateau. Remote Sens. 2019, 11, 1196. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11101196
AMA Style
Cheng M, Zhong L, Ma Y, Zou M, Ge N, Wang X, Hu Y. A Study on the Assessment of Multi-Source Satellite Soil Moisture Products and Reanalysis Data for the Tibetan Plateau. Remote Sensing. 2019; 11(10):1196. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11101196
Chicago/Turabian StyleCheng, Meilin, Lei Zhong, Yaoming Ma, Mijun Zou, Nan Ge, Xian Wang, and Yuanyuan Hu. 2019. "A Study on the Assessment of Multi-Source Satellite Soil Moisture Products and Reanalysis Data for the Tibetan Plateau" Remote Sensing 11, no. 10: 1196. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11101196
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