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Energy Balance Partitioning and Net Radiation Controls on Soil Moisture – Precipitation Feedbacks
Jones, Aubrey R. Brunsell, Nathaniel A.
Jones, Aubrey R.
Brunsell, Nathaniel A.
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Abstract
A series of model runs using the University of Oklahoma’s
Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS) were conducted to investigate
the relative impacts of energy balance partitioning and net radiation on soil
moisture–precipitation feedbacks in the U.S. central plains and to examine how
the dominant physical processes are affected by changes in mean soil moisture
and spatial resolution. Soil temperature and Bowen ratio are influenced nonlinearly
by soil moisture, and by varying the mean soil moisture in the model it
was possible to examine the relationship between soil moisture and the scaling
characteristics of these fields using the statistical moments. Information theory
metrics were used to provide an indication of the uncertainty associated with
varying model resolutions. It was determined that energy balance partitioning
plays a dominant role in the occurrence of soil moisture–precipitation feedback,
while net radiation was not impacted by mean soil moisture. A strong relationship
was seen between soil moisture and the scaling properties of Bowen
ratio, while soil moisture did not appear to influence the scaling characteristics
of soil temperature. Spatial resolution had a large effect on the representation
of boundary layer turbulence, with coarser resolutions unable to capture
turbulent motions, which are necessary for convective processes. The ability of
the model to capture boundary layer turbulence will alter the dynamics of soil
moisture–precipitation feedback as the horizontal transport of moisture by
turbulent motions will affect the spatial and temporal scales over which feedback occurs. Higher-resolution runs are generally associated with a higher
information content. This may provide a methodology for monitoring land–
atmosphere feedbacks via remotely sensed soil moisture and vegetation fields
through statistical knowledge of the dependency of the resulting precipitation
signal on soil moisture and vegetation fields at the resolution they were
observed.
Description
Date
2009-01-14
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Publisher
American Meteorological Society
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Keywords
Soil moisture, Precipitation, Feedbacks
Citation
Jones, A. R. and N. A. Brunsell: 2009, Energy balance partitioning and net radiation as controls on soil moisture-precipitation feedbacks. Earth Interactions, 13, 1-25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2009EI270.1