Assessing Evapotranspiration Estimates from the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2 (GSWP-2) Simulations

Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/).

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gao, Xiang, Schlosser, C. Adam
Format: Technical Report
Language:en_US
Published: MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change 2009
Online Access:http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=1987
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/49859
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author Gao, Xiang
Schlosser, C. Adam
author_facet Gao, Xiang
Schlosser, C. Adam
author_sort Gao, Xiang
collection MIT
description Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/).
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spelling mit-1721.1/498592019-04-10T07:39:07Z Assessing Evapotranspiration Estimates from the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2 (GSWP-2) Simulations Gao, Xiang Schlosser, C. Adam Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/). We assess the simulations of global-scale evapotranspiration from the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2 (GSWP-2) within a global water-budget framework. The scatter in the GSWP-2 global evapotranspiration estimates from various land surface models can constrain the global, annual water budget fluxes to within ±2.5%, and by using estimates of global precipitation, the residual ocean evaporation estimate falls within the range of other independently derived bulk estimates. However, the GSWP-2 scatter cannot entirely explain the imbalance of the annual fluxes from a modern-era, observationally-based global water budget assessment, and inconsistencies in the magnitude and timing of seasonal variations between the global water budget terms are found. Inter-model inconsistencies in evapotranspiration are largest for high latitude inter-annual variability as well as for inter-seasonal variations in the tropics, and analyses with field-scale data also highlights model disparity at estimating evapotranspiration in high latitude regions. Analyses of the sensitivity simulations that replace uncertain forcings (i.e. radiation, precipitation, and meteorological variables) indicate that global (land) evapotranspiration is slightly more sensitive to precipitation than net radiation perturbations, and the majority of the GSWP-2 models, at a global scale, fall in a marginally moisture-limited evaporative condition. Finally, the range of global evapotranspiration estimates among the models is larger than any bias caused by uncertainties in the GSWP-2 atmospheric forcing, indicating that model structure plays a more important role toward improving global land evaporation estimates (as opposed to improved atmospheric forcing). NASA Energy and Water-cycle Study (NEWS, grant #NNX06AC30A), under the NEWS Science and Integration Team activities. 2009-11-25T19:40:19Z 2009-11-25T19:40:19Z 2009-09 Technical Report http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=1987 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/49859 Report no. 179 en_US ;Report no. 179 application/pdf MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change
spellingShingle Gao, Xiang
Schlosser, C. Adam
Assessing Evapotranspiration Estimates from the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2 (GSWP-2) Simulations
title Assessing Evapotranspiration Estimates from the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2 (GSWP-2) Simulations
title_full Assessing Evapotranspiration Estimates from the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2 (GSWP-2) Simulations
title_fullStr Assessing Evapotranspiration Estimates from the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2 (GSWP-2) Simulations
title_full_unstemmed Assessing Evapotranspiration Estimates from the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2 (GSWP-2) Simulations
title_short Assessing Evapotranspiration Estimates from the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 2 (GSWP-2) Simulations
title_sort assessing evapotranspiration estimates from the global soil wetness project phase 2 gswp 2 simulations
url http://globalchange.mit.edu/pubs/abstract.php?publication_id=1987
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/49859
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